Thursday, January 25, 2007

Domain

This is a nice essay. I didn't grow up in Brooklyn, but a few paragraphs really resonate--those wherein the author discusses place-relationships, the tendency to feel resentful of other peoples' relationships w/ a place that you want to think holds special significance for you and you only. I feel this way often when it comes to certain running routes that I hold dear to me. To have to 'share' the place-devotion is frustrating.

Jonathan Lethem’s much-touted and highly excellent novel is a coming-of-age bildungsroman featuring jazz, comic books and a little bit of magical, super-hero-related, Brooklyn-based realism. But the star of the novel isn’t so much its central Lethem-vessel, Dylan Ebdus, as it is the 600-foot stretch of Dean Street between Bond and Nevins, where Messrs. Lethem and Ebdus both grew up--and, incidentally, one block over from where I grew up. The evolution of the street, from a drug-infested den of S.R.O.’s to a haven for young, hip artist types priced out of the Upper West Side, is carefully and movingly recounted by Mr. Lethem (certain descriptions in the book actually gave me the chills). Mr. Lethem often has Dylan walking west on Dean Street to Smith Street and then to Court Street, where he makes a right and heads to Brooklyn Heights. It was a route I had traveled almost every day of my young life.

But when I finished reading Fortress, I was left with the slightly irrational feeling that Mr. Lethem had stolen Dean Street from me. A corner of my life was apparently someone else’s corner as well.

I hadn’t written my memoir, yet I felt like a part of my childhood was now exposed and, as a result, had morphed into some sort of universal experience. I felt the way I imagined someone who had seen his childhood best friend grow up to be Brad Pitt might feel. Maybe it was that now I couldn’t pitch my own coming-of-age memoir about growing up on Dean Street to Random House--but whatever it was, seeing photos of Jonathan Lethem standing on Dean Street with a smug grin on his face brought out feelings of resentment.

Posted by princess kanomanom @ 5:12 PM