Essay Questions

What does the author want a Godfather IV sequel to be?

So far, no plans have still been announced for another sequel to the Godfather saga, but if such a thing should ever come to pass, there are bound to be far worse ideas than the author’s suggestions. For instance, The Godfather, Part III. Rather than continuing the story of Michael Corleone into dotage and heart disease, the suggested template for a final Godfather film would be one filling in missing gaps. His template presents a crazy quilt of short stories that answer questions maybe few actually asked, but many spend considerable time pondering: how did Fredo become such a big shot in Vegas, what was Michael’s wartime experiences that made him a hero, how did the horse’s head make into the bed of the studio guy without waking him up; what kind of childhood does a guy have who grows up to sleep with the fishes and exactly who ate the cannoli?

Who are the top three artist who died too young in the author’s list of greatest unrealized potential?

He references it as the Greatest Potential Unrealized column, but essentially it is a list of those authors whose potential was not fully realized because they died too young. Buddy Holly is the only musician per se on the list. He, of course, was one of the victims of plane crash on The Day the Music Died, perishing at the horrifically tragic age of 22. Nathanael is the only novelist on the list, living nearly twice as long as Buddy Holly, but still dying young at age 37 to have produced just two novels standing the test of time. The author makes note that the third name on his list is the least well-known and that is the reason he is really the iconic figure of unrealized potential.

Ernie Kovacs was really the first television star to actually utilize the medium as something new. Rather than merely transferring the conventions of stage, radio and film, Kovacs exploited the technology made available with television an integral part of his production and performance, creating entertainment spectacle unlike anything else airing at the time. Unfortunately, not only did Kovacs died young (age 42), but unlike Holly and West, much of his genius was not left behind to create a legacy. As the author observes, “How many recent geniuses…are so totally erased from their right place in cultural memory? In Ernie Kovacs’s case, literally erased. Taped over, for crissakes.”

What does the author identify as “today’s most ambitious art” and why?

The greatest ambition an artist can have today, according to Lethem, is creating something that genuinely succeeds in making the familiar seem strange to us. The reason for this is that everything has become familiar through access and repetition. There actually was a time not that very long ago in America when populations of entire towns could not just decide to go to a restaurant and order sushi. There was a time when if one wanted to actually see a movie they had only heard about, they had to hope it showed up on television or basically just accept that they would never see it. Today, even the smallest rural villages might well feature a restaurant serving sushi and the most obscure film is simply a few clicks of the mouse away from being downloaded. Everything is available to everyone (within reason) and everything that is mainstream has been entered into the collective consciousness through repetition. Few things that actually exist in the world today seem strange and unfamiliar anymore.