Mount Chicago
November 19, 2022 8:29 PM - Subscribe
A new book by Adam Levin. An author and stealth standup comic contends with personal loss. An ambitious young man and fan of his seeks his involvement in a fundraiser.
The action in the story—what there is of it—is secondary to the internal monologues of the characters. Or not so much internal monologues as the internal arguments the characters have with themselves, which puts this book in a class with the writings of Henry James and À la Recherche du Temps Perdu—or at least, that's how I think I would classify it, since I haven't read the latter and actually don't know that much about it, but the title is certainly evocative—and although I did take French in high school, my level of fluency was never up to the task of reading it in the original, nor was my studiousness up to the task of reading it even in English, and as for Henry James, well, in college I did read one of his novels—A Portrait of a Lady—but to be accurate didn't so much read it as I paid close attention in class while it was being discussed so I could fake having read it. But that was a long time ago, and pretty much the only thing I remember about it is the story's interiority. That's the thing—if I'm correct about Proust's opus, and I'm pretty sure I'm correct about Henry James—that "Mount Chicago" has in common with them.
The action in the story—what there is of it—is secondary to the internal monologues of the characters. Or not so much internal monologues as the internal arguments the characters have with themselves, which puts this book in a class with the writings of Henry James and À la Recherche du Temps Perdu—or at least, that's how I think I would classify it, since I haven't read the latter and actually don't know that much about it, but the title is certainly evocative—and although I did take French in high school, my level of fluency was never up to the task of reading it in the original, nor was my studiousness up to the task of reading it even in English, and as for Henry James, well, in college I did read one of his novels—A Portrait of a Lady—but to be accurate didn't so much read it as I paid close attention in class while it was being discussed so I could fake having read it. But that was a long time ago, and pretty much the only thing I remember about it is the story's interiority. That's the thing—if I'm correct about Proust's opus, and I'm pretty sure I'm correct about Henry James—that "Mount Chicago" has in common with them.
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posted by chavenet at 8:30 AM on November 22, 2022