Expectations Part 2: A Visit From the Goon Squad

Ted arose early the next morning and took a taxi to the Museo Nazionale, cool, echoey, empty of tourists despite the fact that it was spring. He drifted among dusty busts of Hadrian and the various Caesars, experiencing a physical quickening in the presence of so much marble that verged on the erotic. He sensed the proximity of the Orpheus and Eurydice before he saw it, felt its cool weight across the room but prolonged the time before he faced it, reminding himself of the events leading up to the moment it described: Orpheus and Eurydice in love and newly married; Eurydice dying of a snakebite while fleeing the advances of a shepherd; Orpheus descending to the underworld, filling its dank corridors with music from his lyre as he sang of his longing for his wife; Pluto granting Eurydice’s release from death on the sole condition that Orpheus not look back at her during their ascent. And then that hapless instant when, out of fear for his bride as he stumbled in the passage, Orpheus forgot himself and turned.

Ted stepped toward the relief. He felt as if he’d walked inside it, so completely did it enclose and affect him. It was the moment before Eurydice must descend to the underworld a second time, when she and Orpheus are saying good-bye. What moved Ted, mashed some delicate glassware in his chest, was the quietness of their interaction, the absence of drama or tears as they gazed at each other, touching gently. He sensed between them an understanding too deep to articulate: the unspeakable knowledge that everything is lost. (pg. 214)

Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad won, among other accolades, the 2010 National Circle Award for Fiction and the 2011 Pulitzer Prize. A set of interlinking chapters (or stories) Good Squad is about a circle of people in the music industry including Bennie Salazar, a rock music executive, his assistant, and various other people. The chapters do not necessarily follow a strict timeline, rather taking a character that appears in one chapter (even if briefly) and focusing on them in the next. It is very hard to write about the plot of this book because it is so wide spread and yet also so interconnected. The settings vary from the Bay Area punk rock scene, to Los Angeles, New York, Africa, and Italy. The characters are numerous and varied ranging from a 12 year old girl and an aging music promoter. It can be difficult to follow all the ins and outs but I found what Egan said in an interview to be helpful. In each story is a character lurking on the outskirts is generally the focus of the next.

The Goon Squad is about culture and aging, language, and change that happens at warp speed. Considering that my husbands first computer had the same computing capacity as the math calculators our sons use for math and Eagan is write. How do people cope with rapid technological change and how that change impacts our culture? How does that change effect how people relate to each other? With time being the Goon Squad waiting to ambush us, is happiness limited – or are things more hopeful?

I did not expect to like this novel. I was suspicious of all the hype it received and I was unsure about the punk rock/music aspects of the story. However it was sitting right by the check-out station at the library and I grabbed it on a whim. And it completely blew me away. I enjoyed the way Egan wrote about language and culture and I loved the experimentation she did with structure. My favorite chapter is the power point chapter (and it is definitely worth seeing it on Egan’s website). The power point not only discusses the pauses in rock music and their importance, it touches upon many of the themes of the book in a subtle way that was almost musical in its approach. The Goon Squad is funny and sad, a commentary on the present and a look to the future, it is both simple and complicated – in other words a good read.

I didn’t expect much when I picked up this book and I was so pleased that my reading experience was so good. Sometimes I guess I should put my expectations on hold and be more open minded about books – if that leads to a wonderful experience then all is well.