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A Visit From the Goon Squad; Found Objects

#105: Mar. - April 2012 (Fiction)
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Suzanne

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A Visit From the Goon Squad; Found Objects

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A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD
Jennifer Egan

Chapter 1: Found Objects
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heledd
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Re: A Visit From the Goon Squad; Found Objects

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Sasha is on a first date with Alex, someone she has met online. They don’t have much in common, and have both lied about their ages in their profiles. Sasha is also a kleptomaniac, and seeking help from her therapist, Coz. The evening perks up when Sasha steals a purse, and has to hand it back secretly. They go back to Sasha’s apartment, and when Alex is puzzled, by, and fingers her horde of stolen goods, Sasha becomes very turned on and they have sex.
She even goes through Alex’s wallet when he is out of the room, and takes a crumpled note from it which reads ‘I believe in you’.
I couldn’t help wondering at the sexual way she described the aged plumber fixing her bath. Is there a history of sexual abuse here perhaps?
‘…he’d hit the floor and crawled under her bathtub like an animal fumbling its way into a familiar hole. The fingers he’d groped toward the bolts behind the tub were grimed….’ (page 7, location 191).
‘And once the screwdriver was in her hand, she felt instant relief from the pain of having an old soft-backed man snuffling under her tub,…’ (page 8 location 201)
She mentions missing the World Trade Towers, so I’m thinking this is set sometime after September 11 2001.
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Re: A Visit From the Goon Squad; Found Objects

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Heledd, thanks for leading the discussion this time around. I downloaded the book and will begin reading in the next couple of days.
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Re: A Visit From the Goon Squad; Found Objects

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Thank you heledd. I will be ready to participate soon.
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Re: A Visit From the Goon Squad; Found Objects

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I just got the book so should be ready at the end of the week. Thanks, Heledd!
Gods and spirits are parasitic--Pascal Boyer

Religion is the only force in the world that lets a person have his prejudice or hatred and feel good about it --S C Hitchcock

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. --André Gide

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Re: A Visit From the Goon Squad; Found Objects

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Now that I've read a little further, the epigraph is beginning to make sense.
The epigraph is from Proust’s The Guermantes Way [1925]

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/proust/marcel/p96g/

There are seven books in all, the complete story containing nearly 1.5 million words one of the longest novels in the world, and they are available free at
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/proust/ ... index.html

Not having read any Proust myself, I quite liked David Auerbach’s interpretation on

http://www.waggish.org/2004/311-the-situation/

he states that ‘…there’s endless parties with endlessly revolving characters, with no clear end and no clear direction’
He also feels that
‘The problem with such an approach, as Proust intimates, is that without an external point of reference, with only an excavation of purely internal sensations and impressions, the relation of one’s own mind and memories to common, shared experience does not exist. In going over and over the shared experience in the first part of The Guermantes Way, he leaves readers very little to grasp, other than portraits of scenery.’

I’m beginning to see now that I have read further, how the shifting characters, time changes, and narrative voices may have been influenced by this passage from Proust. Here is also a story of memory, and how it is formed. I was thinking of Sasha and Coz re-writing her history ‘ – they were writing a story of redemption, of fresh beginnings and second chances’.
And when she convinces herself that the note really was hers
I’ll say, Hey, I noticed this on the rug, is it yours? And he’ll say, That? I’ve never seen it before – it must be yours, Sasha. And maybe that’s true. Maybe someone gave it to me years ago, and I forgot’
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Re: A Visit From the Goon Squad; Found Objects

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Has anyone read "The Love we Share without Knowing" by Christopher Barzak ( “In this follow-up to his notable debut, One for Sorrow, Barzak offers an otherworldly novel made up of linked short stories set in contemporary Japan. Barzak’s varied players spin their stories of love, grief, and growing up in first-person narratives that artfully collide with each other to stunning emotional effect. In one narrative thread, a teenage boy lost in Tokyo is led home by an ethereal girl in a fox costume; he later discovers she is dead. The childhood best friend of the fox girl is a casualty of her planned group suicide, but not in the way she anticipates. The author finds rich territory in situating his characters in places steeped in personal loss and letting them fumble toward acceptance of their own frailties.” — Library Journal)
I find the stylistic devices Egan uses similar; actually this style of writing is not unusual in Japanese literature (which is where Barzak has it).
Gods and spirits are parasitic--Pascal Boyer

Religion is the only force in the world that lets a person have his prejudice or hatred and feel good about it --S C Hitchcock

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. --André Gide

Reading is a majority skill but a minority art. --Julian Barnes
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Re: A Visit From the Goon Squad; Found Objects

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No, Oblivion, not read it, but will take a look.
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Re: A Visit From the Goon Squad; Found Objects

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heledd,
thanks for the Proust information. I definitely think that you're on to something here. Sasha's life certainly seems to have "no clear end and no direction". I wonder is the objects are a substitute for human contact. She seems to know that Alex will not be staying around and must have something of his.
Your comment about the remaking of her history is interesting. It does appear that she attempts to justify her stealing and she know that the therapist wants her to own up to it, but she keeps making excuses. It will be interesting to see the causal connections for her behavior.
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Re: A Visit From the Goon Squad; Found Objects

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heledd wrote:I couldn’t help wondering at the sexual way she described the aged plumber fixing her bath. Is there a history of sexual abuse here perhaps?
‘…he’d hit the floor and crawled under her bathtub like an animal fumbling its way into a familiar hole. The fingers he’d groped toward the bolts behind the tub were grimed….’ (page 7, location 191).
I had to read this a second time. I didn't read sex in this. I pictured the old man as some kind of an animal looking for his hole to hide in. :lol: But after second reading I can see it. Thanks a lot heledd!

Time is introduced early in this chapter. Sasha age is a mystery to most people. She looks younger than she really is, and she acts younger than she really is. Sasha has all these goals she wants to accomplish, staying young looking may fool her into believing she has more time to accomplish her list of goals.

What I found to be most interesting in this chapter was how she let the boyfriend use the bath salts from her shrine of lifted goodies. Why would she so readily let him take those bath salts that belonged to her best friend? It does make sense that she may have gotten some type of thrill to see him handle it.

Sasha certainly has set herself up. She is taking some very personal belongings. The note she takes from the man is very personal. Makes me wonder what she will be taking next. She reminds me of a serial killer taking souvenirs from her victims.
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