Film Adaptation of Jonathan Lethem’s ‘Motherless Brooklyn’ Shooting in Brooklyn Heights - see link for shots of faux 50s Brooklyn https://www.brownstoner.com/brooklyn-...

3.5 stele
Am pufnit adesea, amuzat, la năzbâtiile debitate de personajul principal, Lionel Essrog (știu, nu e frumos să râzi de boala cuiva, dar autorul nu pentru corectitudinea politică a scris această poveste, sunt sigur, cu toate că tocmai acest lucru a făcut-o și mai atractivă, sau cel puțin așa-mi place mie să cred), care suferă de Sindromul Tourette, însă parcă e cam puțin pentru un roman atât de lăudat.
Nimic de zis, atmosfera este excelent conturată, recreată, deși inițial, nu știu de ce, mă așteptasem la un roman cu gangsteri a cărui acțiune se petrece în anii treizeci-patruzeci. N-a fost așa, povestea se desfășoară undeva spre sfârșitul anilor optzeci-mijlocul anilor nouăzeci, adăugând cei cincisprezece ani scurși de la descoperirea orfanilor de către măruntul mafiot Frank Minna.
Așadar, totul începe cu asasinarea lui Minna, atras într-o cursă pe când băieții săi, Lionel și ceilalți băieți luați de la orfelinat, supravegheau o clădire.
Mergem înapoi câțiva ani buni și aflăm detalii despre viața pe care au dus-o băieții într-un orfelinat din New York, anostă, placidă și plictisitoare, lipsită complet de perspective, până când salvarea lor apare sub forma unor munci prost plătite oferite de Minna.
Facem un salt în viitor și... începe ancheta. Cine și de ce l-a asasinat pe Minna? Care este povestea misterioasei soții cu care acesta a revenit în New York după o absență de câțiva ani, în timpul căreia nimeni nu știe pe unde au umblat el și fratele său? Cum va descurca Lionel ițele teribil de încurcate ale acestui caz, justificându-și până la urmă meseria de detectiv particular al agenției înființate de Frank Minna?
Acțiunea curge anevoie, îngreunată de desele cugetări aparent lipsite de sens ale suferindului Lionel Essrog. Nici ancheta lui nu m-a convins ca să pot zice: Oau! Ce anchetă polițistă superb pusă în scenă! Sunt curios cum e filmul, chiar aș vrea să-l ascult pe Lionel spunând prostii la tot pasul.
Mai multe, pe Biblioteca lui Liviu: Ancheta unui detectiv de ocazie care suferă de Sindromul Tourette - despre „Orfani în Brooklyn” (Editura Corint, 2020, Colecția Corint Fiction, trad. Irina Negrea), de Jonathan Lethem, pe Biblioteca lui Liviu: https://fansf.wordpress.com/2020/06/0....

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/

3.5 Stars

Motherless Brooklyn is told from Lionel Essrog’s perspective. An orphan residing in the St. Vincent’s Home for Boys in Brooklyn, Essrog and a handful of others ranging from 13-15 are picked up by local hood Frank Minna as day workers for his local “delivery company.” Fast-forward 15 years and those same boys are assistants for Minna’s “detective agency” . . . . . and Minna is dead. What follows is Lionel’s attempt to discover the whodunit.

I have absolutely zero recollection of how this got added to my TBR. All I know is the library had one copy so I have been waiting on it for months and months. During that time I discovered it had been adapted into a feature film with an all-star cast. I can’t imagine anyone better than Edward Norton being the one to declare this novel a labor of love and not rest until Essrog was brought to life on the big screen. He’s a narrator like you’re never seen and deserves to be portrayed by an actor with Norton’s capabilities. Why, you ask? Since I didn’t mention it before, it’s due to the fact that Lionel Essrog suffers from a severe case of Tourette’s syndrome. And that’s the whole reason this book works. The “mystery” is one of not only the meh variety, but also one that is all but solved and explained to the reader by pretty much the 60% mark – and there’s a completely unnecessary romantic interest thrown in to muddy up the waters. Heck, the entire thing gets a little bit lost in itself. Although a specific timeframe is never provided, readers must assume the story takes place roughly in the 90s (some people have cell phones that fit in their pockets, but also still beepers and landlines and drive cars like Mercury Tracers). However, the actions/exchanges of the characters along with the noir style of delivery tricks the brain into believing it to be taking place decades ago. (Apparently the film has fixed this glitch and has the story taking place in the ‘50s.) Lionel compares some of his tics to the acting style of Art Carney and he and the other Minna Men are told they look like rejects from Welcome Back Kotter – it’s just odd. But Lionel Essrog himself? He’s perfection.

n  “I’d appreciate hearing from you—Doorjerk! Doorjam! Jerkdom!—if you see anything odd.”

“You’re pretty odd,” he said seriously.

“Something besides me.”n

He’s the quintessential loveable loser. Not only due to having a very in-your-face medical condition during a time when people weren’t familiar with it and instead simply assumed him to be “the Freakshow,” but also due to his naiveté and loyalty to a boss he truly believed to be a legitimate businessman. With the recent backlash regarding authors who choose to write tales that are not their personal story to tell, I’m certainly glad Lethem is an author who was not censored simply for the fact that he himself does not have Tourette’s.

Look, Ma – no .gifs!

n  n

Lethem serves up a truly remarkable novel here, an old-school noir/whodunit but largely narrated by our protagonist, Lionel Essrog, who suffers from a rather severe case of Tourette's syndrome. Now, I always understood (wrongly) that Tourette simply lead people to cuss randomly and so forth, but as Lethem presents it, it encompasses a wide variety of things, such as OCD, touching, and a whole range of 'tics' and mental processes. Tourette's syndrome does not impact intelligence, however, although Lionel is often perceived by others as simply crazy or a fool.

The tale starts with Lionel and others in an orphanage in Brooklyn, when a guy, Frank Minna, a local, stops by one day and asks for some 'white boys' to help him. Lionel, along with three others, go off in Frank's van, do some dubious errands, and he treats them with 20 spots and a beer. This became something of a pattern, and 'Minna's Men' loved it! Minna, basically a local small-time gangster with some 'turf' in Brooklyn, often works for 'The Clients', although they are shadowy figures for Minna's Men (on purpose). Frank eventually figures out Lionel has Tourette's syndrome and even gives him a book about it. Frank calls Lionel 'Freakshow', but entrusts him for his observation skills among other things.

Frank, after leaving the 'motherless Brooklyn boys' inexplicably for a few years, returns just as 'his' orphans are about to graduate. It seems he has a new scam-- a car service in Brooklyn that basically serves as a front for a private detective agency. Flash forward 15 years or so. Frank often has the 'boys' do all kinds of jobs, rarely giving any reason-- keeping 'Minna's Men' in the dark seems to be his motif. Anyway, one day he has Lionel and another guy on some stakeout on the Upper East Side; not their regular turf by any means! Long story, but Frank ends up dead. Well, it seems its up to Minna's Men to find out what happened, but without their charismatic leader, the Men do not know what to do...

While the plot works as a hat-tip to Philip Marlowe, what makes this book so special revolves around Lionel as we see the world through his eyes, and experience his life and thoughts. Lethem does a masterful job here with Lionel, making him perhaps the most unforgettable protagonist I have experienced in some time. Basically a nice guy, most people underrate his intelligence. Besides Frank saddling him with the nickname Freakshow, the locals around the car service/detective shop have their own names for him, like 'Crazyman'. He is determined to find out why Frank was offed, and bring the killers some vengeance. The bonds among the 'Minna's Men' quickly erode, however, with Lionel not knowing who to trust. Tony, Frank's sidekick among the Men, tries to assume a leadership role, but Lionel distrusts him, desiring to bring 'justice' my himself. But where to start!

Lethem's wordsmithery here made me chuckle and cringe at the same time, and worked beautifully to build empathy with Lionel. We suffer though his 'tics', his worries, his desires, and really, his provincialism-- they guy has never even left NYC! He sees the world though Frank's eyes and prejudices, and often they are not pretty. Finally, a joke narrative runs along as a subtext. Frank often encouraged jokes and traded them among the Men, and some of them really are funny; what makes them funnier when Lionel tells them has to do with his Tourette's syndrome. Highly recommended for lovers of noir and just something different. 5 glowing stars, and I must thank Carol. for putting this on my radar.

Motherless Brooklyn is unlike any novel I have read. I liked that Lionel was an unique character and I enjoyed following him to solve the murder of his boss. I did find the novel hard to read at times and understand what was dialogue via Lionel's tourettes.

This is a very slow paced book very difficult to follow in certain parts due to the way in which the story is pieced together. The tone resembles that of a noir mystery movie, which can be entertaining if you are in the right mood. The main character is also very interesting since he is an orphan suffering from Tourette's syndrome working for a man who is involved in some shady business. If you are looking for a good mystery murder, this is probably not the book for you, but if you are looking for a book with an intriguing plot and good representation of Tourette, this could work for you.

I have been on a bit of a mystery bender lately and I'm not quite sure what to make of that. Perhaps it's the return to the overcast North-West that sends me wanting to plumb the depths of human behavior. The gray skies and early sunsets bring out a curiosity about people's inner darkness which is always matched, measure for measure, by the capacity for redemption. Toughs with no visible qualities reveal a fierce dedication to recently killed compatriots. Prima facie immorality is revealed to be a cover for a rigid adherence to a moral code, something that seems necessary while swimming through the murky waters of crime and violence. Something within that pleases me to no end.

Which makes reading a Jonathan Lethem mystery even more satisfying. Few authors are as capable of writing with such exquisite skill as Lethem. It doesn't matter whether he's writing elegies to Philip K. Dick's lost genius or interviewing Bob Dylan, every word the man writes is one that I find myself increasingly compelled to read as though I, too, suffered from the OCD compulsions that drive Motherless Brooklyn's hero, Lionel Essrog. Lionel suffers from Tourette's Syndrome, a malady that, in the hands of a lesser writer, would quickly devolve into an extended stereotype and free-form fecal farce.

Yet with Lethem we get to peer inside Lionel's head as he tries to ride herd on his tics, struggling to avoid the triggers that will send him on a long and winding rant, all so that he can discover the identity of his mentor's killer. Along the way we are treated to a classic Lethem take on music and how Prince is the musical equivalent of Tourette's. I am, to be honest, quite taken with Lionel in a way that I haven't been since meeting Oskar in Jonathan Safron Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Though more than a couple decades separate these two characters they are, at the least, spiritual kin. Both meander the unfamiliar streets of Manhattan searching for clues to a father figure now gone, and you want to let both of them into your apartment for hot cocoa.

That is not to say that Motherless Brooklyn is all mental illness and sunshine. No, there is a classic story of murder, greed and ambition that swirls within the larger themes of faltering old crime families and the unspoken apartheid that builds walls across blocks of this New York borough. In short, this is Lethem at the top of his game and a book that is not to be missed.

Maybe I've just been lucky picking out some incredible books lately, but I feel like a lot of them are "my new favorite", or "one of the best I've read this year", but I really have to say it again for Motherless Brooklyn. Lethem's writing style had me from the beginning, and the story, being told from the perspective of Lionel Essrog, a man with Tourette's Syndrome was fascinating. It reads like a mystery/detective novel, but really, it's so much more than that.

Also, it was just one of those books that I could identify with on a somewhat personal level. Even though my son is autistic, and doesn't have Tourette's, there were some similiarites that really hit home. It kind of opened my eyes to why he was echolaliac. I mean for awhile, before speech therapy, the only words my son Treston would say would be words just spoken to him. I've always just been curious as to why he has to come and tap me five times on my knee or shoulder before trying to communicate. Reading this book kind of gave me an inside look at why these things happen, since I've always just wanted to ask Treston what he's thinking, but at the same time, knowing he's not able to answer me. Lionel's story just put these characteristics into more real-life situations, and not just textbook answers. It kind of gave me hope that Treston can have a somewhat "normal" life (not that I want him to become a Minna Man or anything), but when he gets older he will be able to have friends and relationships--even if they're dysfunctional, but really, who doesn't have some of those?

Wow, I know that's a lot to take from a so-called detective novel, but really, it's that good. I highly recommend this one!

I‘ve had ‘Motherless Brooklyn’ on my reading list for ages, but suddenly saw Edward Norton’s movie version was being released, so rushed the novel to the top of that list . The book starts well with a chase scene and our hero, Lionel Essrog, a detective with Tourette’s, is so novel, and his ‘condition’ is so well done that I thought I was really in for something special. Within forty or fifty pages, however, the Tourette’s part becomes center-stage and the story gets lost somewhere as we embark on a journey through Lionel’s childhood and school life. The Tourette’s part starts to wear thin, the story never really recovers, and I didn’t enjoy it as much as I had hoped. I guess I just expected too much.

Totally original. Johnathan Lethem is a language rock star.

One of my four favorite books written in my adult lifetime--joining Jesus' Son, A Visit from the Goon Squad and A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories.

The writing is extraordinary, and something I aspire to. It's all so vivid, and the details capture little insights about this world and our world every other sentence. Just amazing.

Also, the story was thoroughly captivating--quite the page-turner.

The characters were really wonderful, too. I have to admit that when he introduced the narrator with Tourette's, why first reaction was, "Well that's really interesting, BUT--that's going to get old, really fast." Felt like it might be a gimmick that would wear through quickly. Nope. Fascinating to see the world through his eyes, to live his experience for awhile--and to see so many connections to how other elements of life can be like that.

That's one of the things so mesmerizing about Lethem as a writer--he's not just a great writer, he's a great thinker. He's taking a concept like Tourette's and finding all these other aspects of life with elements like that, giving me a new perspective on them, connections between the most unlikely things, that have always been right there.

had been hearing about this book for years, and not sure why I put it off. I guess I got the impression it was some hipster thing about Brooklyn. Nothing of the sort.

When I approached the end, I started asking for recommendations on social media, and began amassing a pile of Lethem books to read. I feel so lucky to have discovered another master writer still working. I dove right into Chronic City, and loving that, too.

This did nothing for the slumpy state of my recent reading.

I’ve been meaning to read this book for some time. I expected to love it, so waffling wasn’t the excuse for my delay. Trailers for the movie finally inspired me to get busy and read the book.

The apparently realistic depiction of the Tourette’s disease experience unfortunately makes for a distracting read. More than that, I just didn’t engage with the character, and it wasn’t because of his affliction. He’s interested and effective, and the twists on detecting were enjoyable. But I didn’t reach the point of actual engagement with the character or story.

Furthermore, my very finicky funny bone didn’t find the humor here that many have enjoyed. That always makes me feel crotchety—I could blame myself but that doesn’t make it a better read.

I was left feeling this could be a better movie than a book.