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A Visit From The Goon Squad; Great Rock and Roll Pauses

#105: Mar. - April 2012 (Fiction)
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A Visit From The Goon Squad; Great Rock and Roll Pauses

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A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD
Jennifer Egan

Chapter 12: Great Rock and Roll Pauses
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Re: A Visit From The Goon Squad; Great Rock and Roll Pauses

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This chapter was a disaster for me. I had to use a magnifying glass as the Kindle would not magnify the text, and even then, the white writing on grey background was totally unreadable. Also, the text to speech did not work, so that ruled out another option, and in addition, there were no page or percentage indicators on this chapter.
I thought the slightly autistic Lincoln Blake similar to his mum and great uncle Ted we met in the previous chapter. Linc (is that meant to be a pun on the ‘link’ between these three characters?) finds it difficult to relate to people and is obsessed with silences in music, as his mum was obsessed with music, and now art, and his great uncle obsessed with art, but noticed silences.
I particularly liked Linc’s observation ‘Hey Dad, there’s a partial silence at the end of ‘Fly like and Eagle’ with a rushing sound in the background that I think is supposed to be the wind, or maybe time rushing past.’
Sasha still feels uncomfortable being questioned by her daughter ‘Any chance of easing up on the scrutiny, Alli?’ Sasha says ‘I want to know everything you’ve done’. ‘You can’t’ Mum says. I stare at her and she looks away’
‘Keeping secrets will kill you’ is one of her dad’s favourite sayings. I wonder if Blake is referring to Rob’s drowning, and also wonder if he has told Sasha that he knows about her past.
There are differences and difficulties in the family, but that is true of any family. Sasha has found happiness in her art. Drew buries himself in his work, perhaps through guilt over the death of his friend. The long hours he works cause friction in the family.
Alli puzzles over her mum ‘She looks like someone I want to know, or maybe even be’. She is able to help her dad come to terms with Linc’s awkwardness even though ‘It’s a mystery to me why he loves mum so much’.
Alli hears Drew getting Linc interested in the sounds and silences of the desert, and graphs the silences for him, and father and son look like they have the beginnings of an understanding, through the intervention of Alli. Uncle Ted is not mentioned in this chapter, although we are previously told that he is a frequent visitor.
Here is a list of the music I’ve managed to get from this chapter
Bernadette – four Tops
Foxey Lady – Jimmy Hendrix
Young Americans – David Bowie
Mighty Sword – The Frames
Fly like an Eagle – Steve Miller Band
Long Time Runnin – Doobie Brothers
Supervixen – Garbage
Roxanne – Police
Re arrange beds – An Horse
Closing Time – Semisonic
Mighty Sword – The Frame
Life's a glitch and then you die - The Simpsons
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