Jonathan Lethem nominally sets Motherless Brooklyn in downtown Brooklyn, but it's more accurate to say that it takes place in the world of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler and Elmore Leonard. Or, to be even more precise, in the Land of Noir. It's a textbook example of superior detective fiction, with all the trappings: a clever gumshoe (who, of course, gets himself bopped on the head), a bad girl, two (count 'em two) car chases; a mysterious international crime cartel (on loan from Ian Fleming), a scary assassin, seedy all-night joints, endless stakeouts, even a police detective who's always just a step behind our guy. It's so self-consciously, unapologetically derivative -- less plagiary than homage. One character even quotes Sam Spade: "When a man's partner is killed, he's supposed to do something about it." The novel is suspenseful, clever, and occasionally witty. It kept me engaged and guessing, so I have no complaints. Of course I couldn't follow the intricacies of the betrayals and counter-betrayals, but then, I never can.
It's a Brooklyn novel in the sense that it recognizes the astonishing provinciality of the borough. Lionel Essrog, our detective, thinks of New Jersey and Connecticut as exotic territories. Most of the action is specifically located in downtown Brooklyn, which happens to be a neighborhood that I know rather well. The investigators have their office on Court Street, where I often visited my father's law offices, first at 125 Court and later on the 13th floor of a tall building at 66 Court (the floor was listed, believe it or not, as 12A, so as not to alarm the triskaidekaphobic). Also mentioned is Joralemon Street, where Dr Irving Pollack, my smooth-faced orthodontist, painfully tightened the metal braces on my teeth every other week for the entire duration of my childhood and youth.
Motherless Brooklyn seems to be designed for the big screen. In 2017 a version appeared that was written and directed by the rather brilliant actor Edward Norton, who also plays Lionel Essrog. On a whim, we rented and watched the film last night. It's an engaging film, very handsomely rendered. I watched it, I'm afraid, with a chip on my shoulder, because I came to it with the novel fresh in my mind and resented the liberties the film takes with the novel. In fact, after just a few introductory scenes, Norton left the novel behind. Instead, he crossed it with the Towne-Polanski Chinatown. It's a mistake, but not a bad one, because if your intention is to imitate a film, you might as well imitate an excellent one. Into the film, Norton imports a series of elements that are utterly foreign to the novel. There's a dictatorial character who is modeled on Noah Cross, a child of mysterious origin similar to the daughter of Evelyn Mulwray ("she's my sister and my daughter") and a contrived plot device that brings us deep into impenetrable Harlem. I'm sorry to say that Motherless Brooklyn, the film, doesn't escape the gravitational pull of Chinatown.
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