The selection most likely to be extracted for critical analysis or introduced into the curriculum for the purpose of study and writing term papers is “The Ecstasy of Influence.” In this essay, the author considers the history of artistic influence of those who came before upon those in the present who create for borrowing by those in the future. As he asserts, “Literature has been in a plundered, fragmentary state for a long time.” The line between plagiarism and homage, stealing and being influence, copyright violation and sampling is murky at best. What is less murky is that this is a great big book overflowing with wonderfully insightful, information and well-written essays and focusing on the one which has received the most attention is a disservice of the highest nature.
For instance, the sadly underserved reader who has gone a lifetime without being introduced to the wonderfully ironic world of Thomas Berger gets a full-throated introduction here that covers, if only by brief mention, every one of the Berger’s novels. While focusing on that which was just published at the time, the essay expands outward to reveal the fundamental nature of why he considers the author of Little Big Man to have been one of the three or four greatest living American novelists at the time. (Berger has since died.)
Also receiving high praise is Shirley Jackson. Introduced as the author of maybe the most famous short story ever composed by an American—“The Lottery”—the essay’s true focus is on her brilliant creation named Merricat, the narrator of her novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Jackson has since experienced a long overdue awakening in America and doubtlessly many will come to share the author’s confession that she is their favorite writer.
The essays also reveal the 1980’s college radio mainstay The Go-Betweens is the author’s favorite band, that James Brown is more than merely the Godfather of Soul, but a truly transformative artist the awareness of whom becomes a touchstone marker in the life of the author, and that Norman Mailer is his choice for the most memorable literary “character” of post-WWII America. The text covers an almost unimaginable stretch of fertile territory. One minute the reader is thrust back to a 1980’s club to share in the moment of hearing “People Who Died” for the first time and the next he is going on an all-night binge with fellow writer Bret Easton Ellis on what is now routinely regarded as the true end of the 20th century: September 10, 2001.
Music, art, movies, books, comic books, superheroes, punk rockers, allegorical westerns, forgotten television genius and a very fascist Batman all come under scrutiny. If one is lucky enough, one will believe they have discovered a kindred soul in the opinions and insight expressed in the essays. Those less lucky will be nodding in agreement during one essay and furiously shaking their head in disgust at the next. The saddest among us will have quit by page twenty and tossed the book aside. Their loss may be your gain if that book later finds its way into one of the used bookstores in which Jonathan Lethem toiled before finding success as a writer rather than a merely well-informed reader.
The style is easy and conversational, the opinions relentlessly non-judgmental toward those who do not share them, and the content is always interesting. Even if one truly does look on in bewildered silence at the mention of names like Shirley Jackson, Ernie Kovacs and Italo Calvino, by the time the essays about them are completed, the world will have changed for them and you.
