The Disappointment Artist and Other Essays [Paperback]

Jonathan Lethem (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 7, 2005

This book shows the development of Jonathan Lethem's imagination through the movies, comics and books he read as a child - it is a rich mixture of personal memories and cultural commentaries. In the title piece, a letter from his aunt (a children's book author) spurs a meditation on the value of writing workshops, the role and influence of reviews, and the uncomfortable fraternity of writers. In 'Defending The Searchers', Lethem explains how a passion for the classic John Wayne Western became occasion for a series of minor humiliations. In 'Identifying with Your Parents', an excavation of childhood love for superhero comics expands to cover a whole range of nostalgia for a previous generation's cultural artefacts. And '13/1977/21', which begins by recounting the summer he saw Star Wars twenty-one times, 'slipping past ushers who'd begun to recognize me...', becomes a meditation on the sorrow and solace of the solitary moviegoer.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Novelist Lethem's new collection of essays starts with an intriguing, if emotionally distant, consideration of his lifelong relationship with popular culture and develops into a moving memoir that transcends those references altogether. As the essays make clear, Lethem (The Fortress of Solitude) has always been obsessive: he watched Star Wars 21 times the summer it was released, then followed that with 21 viewings of 2001 a few years later; the novels of Philip K. Dick played as large a role in his growing artistic vision as did the canvases of his father, painter Richard Lethem. But the collection doesn't find its purpose until the author strips away the pop culture references to get at what really drives him: the childhood his hippie parents provided for him, his father's artistic influence on him, his mother's early death. The book picks up steam especially in the essay "Lives of the Bohemians," a simple and direct family history in which, for the first time here, Lethem's depiction of himself as a child feels genuine rather than theorized, lived rather than considered. By the end, Lethem fully and beautifully bares himself, admitting that he, like so many, is driven by loss. Only then does he write the truest sentence possible: "I find myself speaking about my mother's death everywhere I go in this world."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Praise for Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude, for what the Baltimore Sun deems "a hybrid tour de force." Not only does Lethem display a broad range of cultural and intellectual knowledge; according to the critics he’s mastered the art of memoir as well. The book is as heartfelt and self-effacing as it is esoteric. The one negative review seems more of a personal attack on Lethem than a reasoned slice of criticism (Jennifer Autrey writes in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "There are readers who will hang in there with Lethem. I was married to one of them once."). Is there any literary style that can trip Lethem up? We’ll have to wait for his poetry collection to find out.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 149 pages
• Publisher: Faber & Faber; 1st Ed. edition (July 7, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571227740
• ISBN-13: 978-0571227747
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 4.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,920,037 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jonathan Lethem was born in New York and attended Bennington College.

He is the author of seven novels including Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, which was named Novel of the Year by Esquire and won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Salon Book Award, as well as the Macallan Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger.

He has also written two short story collections, a novella and a collection of essays, edited The Vintage Book of Amnesia, guest-edited The Year's Best Music Writing 2002, and was the founding fiction editor of Fence magazine.

His writings have appeared in the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, McSweeney's and many other periodicals.

He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting reminiscence on learning to think critically, March 19, 2005

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Disappointment Artist (Hardcover)

In THE DISAPPOINTMENT ARTIST, novelist Jonathan Lethem examines some of the influences that have shaped him, as an artist and as a person. They include films, books, music, and his family and childhood environment. Lethem grew up mainly in Brooklyn, son of a painter and a bohemian mother who died of a brain tumor when the writer was in his early teens.

"Speak, Hoyt-Schermerhorn" is the most evocative of Lethem's childhood. In this essay, he describes the subway of his high school years. Hoyt-Schermerhorn was his station in a rough neighborhood and the essay reflects his fear in being easy prey as a young boy on his own, as well as his fascination with the vibrant city all around him. When an abandoned platform in his station is chosen as the set for the dystopian New York City movie The Warriors, Lethem's interests collide.

Three essays in this collection are about movies: "Defending the Searchers," "13, 1977, 21," and "Two or Three Things I Dunno About Cassavetes," and films are at least mentioned in all of the remaining essays. The Searchers is an old John Wayne movie, dated and awkward, yet Lethem is moved by its imagery, by John Wayne's acting power, and remains in thrall to it. He is moved to defend it, even in the face of a hostile audience, even to people he knows would understand neither the movie nor his compulsion to speak. "13, 1977, 21" is about seeing Star Wars 21 times at the age of thirteen. This isn't as odd as it might sound; a lot of boys saw Star Wars many, many times when it first came out. The essay isn't really about Star Wars; it's about obsession and how you can hide behind it. His mother's illness, his father's remoteness, the awkwardness of his preteen years --- the author could make these things disappear, temporarily, at the movies.

"The Disappointment Artist" is about writing and generosity. Based on correspondence from Lethem's aunt, Wilma Yeo, a children's book author, the essay concerns her experiences with Edgar Dahlberg, her writing instructor. Dahlberg, whose misanthropic work is largely forgotten now, was hypercritical, relentlessly discouraging, and mean. He is especially cruel to other writers, even students; Lethem examines Dahlberg's implicit self-loathing and compares it with his aunt's more positive approach.

"The Disappointment Artist" is the title essay and reading the whole collection will make its emphasis clear. When a reader (or viewer or listener) invests so much of himself in any given artist, the normal peaks and troughs of an artistic career become so meaningful that the disappointment of lesser works is nearly unbearable. This collection is in no danger of such a brush-off. It's a testament to our culture's fascination with itself, yet moving and personal, an interesting reminiscence on learning to think critically.

--- Reviewed by Colleen Quinn

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Companionable Writing But..., March 31, 2006

By 

Insatiable Reader (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Disappointment Artist: Essays (Paperback)

The mock music reviews, the odd bits of arcane conversation, and all the other eddies of thinking that appear in The Fortress of Solitude evoked curiosity I hoped this book would fulfill. What sort of essayist would Lenthem be? He is certainly a skilled one. His prose is direct and honest while being, as you'd expect, witty and creative. As a companion piece to his novel, this collection explains a great deal. The chief trouble with this memoir, however, is that Lenthem ultimately leaves his audience behind, pursuing his literary and pop-cultural obsessions past a point readers can follow. By focusing on the books, movies, and music that forged his character, Lethem risks self-indulgence. The early death of his mother, his unconventional upbringing, and his father's artistic distance promise emotinal payoff, but this collection devolves. By the end, human concerns seem less important to Lenthem than the content of his bookshelves. He opens his closets...and reveals stuff.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars So he navel gazes, he has one hell of a navel!, May 21, 2005

By 

Nostalgianaut "Butako" (Tokyo) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Disappointment Artist (Hardcover)

Some readers have expressed their dislike of Lethem's navel gazing in this collection, I didn't mind at all. His essays on Jack Kirby and the Searchers are some of the best writing I've read about comics or film in a long time. The scene where he describes his cynical junkie friend ruining a viewing of the Searchers should resonate with any member of Generation X who had their private passions invaded by the that slew of non-commital flakes we found ourselves surrounded with in the 1990s:eyebrow cocking stoners, who despite their lack of commitment, were always vigilant for passion, always ready to chide us for taking a stand on anything, whether it be a political position or art. If there's one thing I didn't like about this book was Lethem's display of self-consciousness about seeing Star Wars 21 times, something that no one from his generation would bat an eye at. If anything, it says more about the world he lives in than the writer himself.