Before you get started: yes, that "Fortress of Solitude" is a reference to Superman's Ice Palace. It functions within this novel as a metaphor for, oddly enough, solitude itself, and/or the main character's preoccupation with / attachment to the block of his childhood home. Dylan, said main character, is the only white kid in a decidedly black and occasionally Latino neighborhood; his coming to the "'hood" represents the onset of the delicious phenomenon known as "gentrification," though his hippie-fed mother seems to consider their "white as minority" status within the area as a sort of badge of liberal authenticity. All interesting politics aside, it is not characters or beliefs or even plot that defines this text, but rather setting. Lethem's portrayal of NYC in the 70's, as told from this particular fish out of water point of view, is nothing short of dazzling. He employs copious pop cultural references - more on that later - in an effort to give a street level view of Dylan's upbringing and childhood friendships, and the effort rings so true that it invokes all kinds of questions regarding fictional use of historical reality. That's the strength here - while a somewhat mysterious on-again, off-again friendship takes centerstage in this story that devolves a little bit toward its end, Dylan's block - its sing song hop-scotch games, its tales of sandlot stickball glory - sticks with the reader just as much as much as it stuck with him.
I can't review this book without putting a huge emphasis on the soundtrack. Lethem drops in songs from the era in an evolving fashion that reveals an author that was there and/or knew what's up (this contrasts sharply with books such as The Time Traveler's Wife where it certainly felt like the Violent Femmes got dropped like a name-check; here the music pulses with the street, not to say "ain't I cool" but to let you hear what was playing - Donny Hathaway (cool!) gets dropped in with Rapper's Delight sans blinks). Some of this musical deluge stems from the fact that a major character was a "famous soul singer" - his philly soul and blaxpoitation LP collection is rival-less, and it spins constantly during his scenes. But we also hear young girls chanting Jackson 5 hits as they jump rope on the street, and we listen along as Dylan's own musical tastes evolve from listening along with his 60s folk-loving mother to said soul to the punk music so prevalent in the CBGB's late 70s. (And yes, CBGB's / Max's Kansas City - there, things did get a bit name-checky). Finally, we catch up with Dylan in his thirties in the late 90s - now he writes liner notes for Rykodisc collections and approaches the music world with a collegiate hipster angle. But note that his inner hipster is in love with soul: it' a big way how the background music gets rendered in the foreground of Dylan's obsessive nostalgia. There's a fantastic scene in Dylan's later life where a girlfriend simultaneously accuses him of being obsessed with his childhood and depressing musicians from said childhood; indeed, the two are irrevocably intertwined, his childhood friendship (with the soul singer's son Mingus) and the music of the time are entrenched in him. A number of reviews I've read complain about this pop culture dropping, and my only response is: how do you convey the realism of 1970s modernity without dropping pop culture in the mix? Are we suppose to ignore those hit singles playing during our first kisses?
A side fascinating aspect of this part of the text is the soul singer himself, Barrett Rude, Jr. In a novel laced with NYC realism and a laundry list of accurate soul music backdrop, a major character - and the narrative of his excellently-named band, The Subtle Distinctions - is 100% fake. Though it's been noted in quite a few places that this character seems to be modeled on Phillip Wynne of The Spinners - both men are relatively unsuccessful solo acts who left a hit soul band in the late sixties - Barrett is otherwise just invented, though the author behaves for all purposes as though he is another drop in the pop culture bucket. Lethem even goes so far as to make up a fake song by a real band - "Foghorn Leghorn" by the Digital Underground - that theoretically samples a fake band for which the fake Rude sang backup vocals. Postmodernists, I'll pause a moment to let the reality/fiction parsing portion of your brain slide back into your ear. And this is not just a blip in the narrative - the *major event* of the text revolves around Barrett, and the structure of the book mirrors this fact. The first and last parts of the book feature Dylan's childhood and adult life, respectively, but a middle section features the liner notes (written by Dylan) of a compilation of The Subtle Distinctions work. Simultaneously bizarre that this unreality sits right next to such a staunch effort at rendering detailed reality, and also that Lethem so seamlessly incorporated this into the text. To the point, of course, that idiots like me, who compiled a soundtrack to go along with the novel, found themselves googling fictional band names, only to constantly be redirected to reviews of this book.
Beyond these music-centric aspects, the detailed rendering of the streets stirs deeply. Stick-ball, spaldeens, graffiti-tagging, Dylan's constant fear of being "yoked" (headlocked and mugged), the general malaise seeping through the streets: all are brilliant and pull this novel above itself. There are some weaknesses - Dylan and Mingus's relationship, especially *certain* aspects of it, seems a little strained, and there's an off-putting two-dimensionality to Dylan's character, particularly in his jaded record guy adult version. AND he pulls off the "able to get laid without effort" stunt that I don't particularly appreciate in my middle aged depressed protagonists - see, Sportswriter Comma The. On top of those minor complaints, there's the wacky inclusion of magical realism within the novel that again seems to violate the harsher, realer aspects. My wife seems to be convinced that this is a metaphorical coping device and just "magical," not real at all, but I think that certain aspects of the plot would be rendered a little bizarre if the magic is just in the characters' heads. I'll leave that up to interpretation, as other reviews seem split on whether the inclusion of that narrative device is insane or brilliant.
This book invariably gets described as "sprawling" and "messy;" part of that is due to the sprawling, messy reality it attempts to portray, but part of that, too, is the loose ends and above-mentioned semi-flaws in character construction. In an attempt to keep this review short and to keep the plot unrevealed, I have not even touched on a number of the novel's tangents - super heroes, comics, moms and dads, avant garde art for the sake of art v. its commercial sibling - so trust that even though the book only runs four hundred some odd pages, it covers a tremendous amount of ground. After reading this book, I tried a new reading practice - I read the novel "backwards," looking over scenes again (and particularly noting all of the musical references, 99% of which are included in the above soundtrack). I recommend this, if you feel the desire and have the time; it's a great way to ingrain a novel into your memory. You also notice odd details - for example, certain Major Events that ripple through the course of the novel have actually risen and fallen before 50 pages have gone by. It should be clear by now that I recommend this book - far from perfect, and more really good at setting than anything else - but whether you plug into the accompanying soundtrack or not, you don't even have to close your eyes to find yourself walking along a hot summer block in 1970s NYC. Quite a cool experience.
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