Men and Cartoons: Stories [Anglais] [Relié]

Like Lethem's bestselling novel The Fortress of Solitude, this collection blends the literary with the fantastical, probing themes of loneliness, failed relationships and the consequences of strange powers. These nine stories, starring comic book heroes and regular folks, are steeped in melancholic nostalgia, absurdist humor and a sly air of cultural critique. The strongest combine character studies with extraordinary elements: in "The Spray," police investigating a robbery in a couple's apartment leave behind an aerosol spray that reveals missing items as glowing images, which the couple subsequently use to find out more than they wanted to know about each other. In "Super Goat Man" and "The Vision," real and imaginary superheroes become the focus for the dashed hopes of characters who can't help feeling spiteful at their loss of innocence. Lethem delves into Borges and Kafka territory in some stories, notably "The Dystopianist, Thinking of His Rival, Is Interrupted by a Knock on the Door." In this surreal fable, a writer of bleak futures invents the perfect literary weapon to defeat his utopianist enemy, only to have it show up on his threshold. "Access Fantasy" is the most straightforwardly science fictional, set in a future when people live in their cars, immobilized by a citywide traffic jam. Stylistically varied, inventive, accessible, Lethem's stories offer a fine appetizer for fans hungry for his next big thing.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This anthology of nine stories, variously dealing with relationships, memories, masculinity, and superheroes, is offbeat, weirdly Zen, and surprisingly satisfying. The opener, "The Vision," read by David Aaron Baker, is set at a neigh-borhood beer bash where the guests play a disturbing parlor game during which superhero fantasies come to the surface. "Access Fantasy" is a mini-sci-fi thriller about a world that exists only in a traffic jam, while another hidden realm exists beyond a veil. Comedienne Sandra Bernhard, the only female narrator on this collection, renders the story in a disappointingly flat style. By contrast, "The Glasses," a slice-of-life featuring an altercation at a Brooklyn optician's shop, is read with lively and credible style by Danny Hoch. The author reads two stories in the collection, including "Super Goat Man," which follows a young academic over two decades of his acquaintance with a third-rate superhero. S.E.S. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

With Motherless Brooklyn (1999), Lethem, then one of sf's fair-haired boys, crossed over big time to mainstream fiction. In The Fortress of Solitude [BKL Je 1 & 15 03], however, a magic ring was the central device in an otherwise naturalistic context. So is Lethem forging ahead in the mainstream or crossing back to genre ground? In these nine stories, both. "The Vision," "Vivian Relf," and "Planet Big Zero"--all about coincidentally reencountering old, or at least persistent, acquaintances--could become fantastic but don't because the plaintiveness they aim for runs counter to genre strengths. "The Spray" and "Super Goat Man," however, about less fortuitous reencounters, employ fantastic elements to put the satiric screws to their characters. "The Dystopianist," a jape on the rivalry between two sf writers; "Access Fantasy," a huge-single-paragraph tour-de-force that might have been written by the dystopianist; and even the off-kilter comedy sketch "The Glasses" would be at home in any au courant sf/fantasy anthology. "The National Anthem," cast as a letter between old, philandering friends, is New Yorker all the way. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved