Timothy McSweeney's Header Image

- - - -

Dave Eggers' The Wild Things is available for preorder, in regular hardcover and
limited-edition fur-covered.

- - - -

J O N A T H A N   L E T H E M .

- - - -

Copyright Newcity Chicago
Newcity Chicago

- - - -

EYE SPY
"This Shape We're In" by Jonathan Lethem

Margaret Wappler

With narrative aplomb reminiscent of Hunter S. Thompson's verviest work, aided and abetted by a man's man, besotted narrator Jonathan Lethem gives us a barely-novella-sized work, "This Shape We're In." it's easy to view this self-assured mockup as only a midnight snack for those hungrily awaiting Lethem's next book, but within "Shape"'s brevity lies a big concept waiting to swallow you whole.

It's the story of a man's adventures living in a human body, or at least its shape, a concept seemingly cribbed from a Kurt Vonnegut outtake, then spun with genre-bending enthusiasm, encompassing sci-fi, war stories and the search for enlightenment.

From the start, we get no hand-holding as Lethem plunges us into the mind and collective shape of the narrator, an older man willingly fallen from grace, Henry Fauber. Fauber's naive son, Dennis, has disappeared, and is reported as living in the shape's eye, dabbling in Buddhism and begging for change.

At his wife's demands, Fauber departs from his home in the "subburrows," or bowels, where he works as a "garbage hider," heading for the eye that he believes to be an imposter. "It wouldn't be the first time," Fauber tells us, "some priestly collective mounted a bogus eye and started preaching to deluded seekers and militia types."

Working up the spine, Fauber eventually finds the eye, after stumbling on a fake one guarded by a pack of young, bubble-gum-chewing nuns. The real eye is a deliciously depthless chasm, rife with capital-S symbolism that Fauber rattles off like a laundry list, irreverent yet allowing us to indulge in all the possibilities too.

"Black, absolute," he describes. "That's what I saw at first, and so I Ieaned in closer to the glass, expecting something more. There was nothing more... It might have been the bottom of the ocean floor... It might have been the vast pupil of God's or Big Brother's unblinking eye. It might have been a vidscreen turned off."

Lethem doesn't discern what the eye might mean or be, and it's that lack of pandering that makes this small work a success. The author shows us a world of which we can barely conceive, yet when he hands us the scraps of similarities -- the disparate bars and cathedrals that dot the landscape of the shape -- Lethem still doesn't choose to conscript this world, or the characters of his tale, as simple allegory.

"This Shape We're In"
by Jonathan Lethem
McSweeney's, $9, 55 pages (2001-03-29)

- - - -

MORE ARTICLES

 

 

- - - -

MAIN PAGE | ARCHIVES



Memories of Amanda Davis




Red dot denotes content that is new today.

Black dot denotes newish content.

McSWEENEY'S STORE

SUBSCRIBE TO:
McSWEENEY'S
THE BELIEVER
WHOLPHIN

FUTURE McSWEENEY'S BOOKS

THE AMANDA DAVIS HIGHWIRE FICTION AWARD

INVITE A McSWEENEY'S AUTHOR TO SPEAK IN YOUR TOWN OR COLLEGE

THE BEST AMERICAN NONREQUIRED READING

McSWEENEY'S MONTHLY MAILING LIST

BOOKSTORES WITH A McSWEENEY'S DISPLAY

McSWEENEY'S-RELATED EVENTS AND VARIOUS TOUR DATES

ORDER INQUIRIES AND ADDRESS CHANGES

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
FOR BOOKS
FOR THE QUARTERLY
FOR THE WEBSITE
FOR WHOLPHIN

McSWEENEY'S INTERNSHIPS

CONTACT US

- - - -

LETTERS TO McSWEENEY'S

LISTS

McSWEENEY'S PREDICTS

McSWEENEY'S RECOMMENDS

NEW WHOLPHIN FILM

DAN LIEBERT, VERBAL CARTOONIST

TEDDY WAYNE'S UNPOPULAR PROVERBS

REVIEWS OF NEW FOOD

DISPATCHES FROM MANILA

DISPATCHES FROM MOSCOW

AND HERE'S THE KICKER:
MIKE SACKS'S CONVERSATIONS WITH HUMOR WRITERS


SARAH WALKER SHOWS YOU HOW

DISPATCHES FROM AN ENVIRONMENTAL LAWYER
WHO IS TRYING TO GROW A MUSTACHE


DISPATCHES FROM A HANGDOG BANKRUPT

DISPATCHES FROM THE ANACOSTIA

DISPATCHES FROM THE CAPITAL

DISPATCHES FROM INDIA

THE WINNER'S CIRCLE WITH ERIC FEEZELL

BEN GREENMAN'S FAKE CELEBRITY MUSICALS

SEAN MICHAELS LISTENS TO MUSIC IN MONTREAL

SHORT IMAGINED MONOLOGUES

KIDS' LETTERS TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

STAINED TEETH: A COLUMN ABOUT WINE

DISPATCHES FROM THE WINGS AT THE BALLET

YOUR MONEY, YOUR JOB ... YOUR LIFE, WITH ALISON ROSEN

KEVIN DOLGIN TELLS YOU ABOUT PLACES YOU SHOULD GO IN EUROPE

LAWRENCE WESCHLER'S EVERYTHING THAT RISES: A BOOK OF CONVERGENCES

THE CONVERGENCES CONTEST

ABOUT THE CONVALESCENT

ABOUT GOD SAYS NO

ABOUT UNDERGROUND AMERICA

ABOUT THANKS AND HAVE FUN RUNNING THE COUNTRY

LETTERS FROM AN EARTH BALL TO, OR CONCERNING, SEAN HANNITY

DISPATCHES FROM ADJUNCT FACULTY AT A LARGE STATE UNIVERSITY

E-MAILS SENT TO THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FLAG-FOOTBALL TEAM


ADVICE FROM A PERSON WITH A BACHELOR'S DEGREE IN PSYCHOLOGY

JOHN MOE'S POP-SONG CORRESPONDENCES

INTERVIEWS WITH PEOPLE WHO HAVE INTERESTING OR UNUSUAL JOBS

FLIP: A COLUMN ABOUT SKATEBOARDING

OPEN LETTERS TO PEOPLE OR ENTITIES WHO ARE UNLIKELY TO RESPOND

DISPATCHES FROM A PUBLIC LIBRARIAN

MICHAEL IAN BLACK IS A VERY FAMOUS CELEBRITY

DAN KENNEDY SOLVES YOUR PROBLEMS WITH PAPER

STEPHEN ELLIOTT'S POKER REPORT

- - - -

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL