The Fortress of Solitude

There is a fantastic scene in the middle of the Fortress of Solitude, in which one character puts forward his theory that any group of people in pop culture can be cast as members of the Beatles. For instance, in Star Wars, Paul is Luke Skywalker, John is Han Solo, George is Chewbacca and Ringo is the robots. The beauty of this is not its accuracy (I’m sure the Beatles could easily be cast as any other given band, say, The Clash) but how Jonathan Lethem, the author, is really defining the relationship of the characters for you, and subconsciously setting up the latter half of the novel.

What I said really doesn’t make a lot of sense unless you know what the book is about. Let me explain: Dylan Ebdus (Paul) is the son of an avant-garde artist and a populist hippie, cast out onto the mean streets of Brooklyn for most of his childhood. It’s there he meets his close friend Mingus Rude (John Lennon), pitiable rival and sometimes friend Arthur (George) and bully Robert Woolfolk (almost definitely Yoko). Mingus is the son of a talented singer, who split with his band and has fallen into a life involving copius amounts of drugs, sometimes with his son. As the first half of the book is set in the 1970’s, the tensions of the city define their lives as much as their relationships, and you can imagine life doesn’t go terribly well.

The true star of the book, though, is the soundtrack (yes this is a book, and yes I know what I’m talking about). There are constant references to soul, funk, disco, punk and many many other tracks and genre’s, that come to define the segmentation in the city. Dylan is torn between his neighbourhood’s black music, with the white Manhattan punk and new wave sounds, all of which are engulfing the city.

Structually, the book fails. The first half has this sprawling, evolving feel to it, and when the book makes a big jump forward in time, the story hurtles towards a conclusion that feels a little forced, and doesn’t quite reach its lofty amibitions. In this respect it lives up quite well to its superhero influenced plot. Ooh! Totally forgot to mention, Dylan has a ring that gives him superpowers. This isn't as big a deal as you might think.

When the book is on form though, it sucks you in. You’ll find yourself thinking you would put up with a yoking just so you can hit CBGB’s, or go spraypaint a train after buying cans from Underburg. The atmosphere is incredible. If the characters end up being defined by their childhood, then it could be because their childhood was so much more interesting, so much more alive, than their adulthood. For that, any flaws towards the end of the novel have more resonance than could have been intended.