Michelle's Contemp Blog

Michelle Lei Reviewing  A Visit From the Goon Squad  by Jennifer Egan  A Visit From the Goon Squad Book Cover ~SPOILER ALERT~ A Visit from the Goon Squad is a work of fiction written by Jennifer Egan that was published in June 2010 by Knopf Publishing Group. The novel mirrors and reproduces the feeling of watching TV and it is a character-driven narrative. This means the novel is driven by the characters instead of the plot and the televisual elements work in conjunction with it. The novel begins with Sasha, a kleptomaniac, as the focalizer but shifts when she mentions her old boss, Bennie, who used to pour gold flakes into his coffee. The reader eventually learns that Bennie has dismay for the music industry, which he devoted his entire life to, and is recently divorced. The novel presents the past and future of each character by having the characters talk about memories or things people will eventually do. The use of Chekhov's Gun provides the read...

Altered chronology in A Visit From the Goon Squad is meaningful because the form of the book supports the content within it. It makes the themes in the book more meaningful because most of the characters in the book struggle with the passage of time. The novel introduces different characters at various points in their lives and the important part is not that they are at those points in their life but how they got to those points. The altered chronology in Visit also makes the novel more entertaining for the readers. The easter eggs hidden throughout the chapters reference past and future chapters. Often times, a character will be in the background during one chapter and be the focalizer of the next, which gives the reader a more in-depth view of all of the characters in the novel. This makes the novel more engaging because readers must try to figure out what time period the chapter is taking place in. The order in which Egan sequences the chapters is deliberately meant to mimic a st...

Pauses in songs can last from seconds to minutes and can be sudden or gradual but all pauses are powerful nonetheless. Different artists throughout different genres of music have used pauses to emphasize certain parts of songs and make the overall number more powerful.  In the song "Breezeblocks" by Alt-J, there is a short pause from 1:55 - 1:56 which may seem insignificant but adds depth to the song. From 1:30 - 1:55, the beat of the song speeds up and the pause helps to slow the song back down so that it is at the same pace as it was at the beginning. The song shifts pace about 4 times throughout but the pause at 1:55 indicates a shift in the tone of the song from the fast-paced aggressiveness it was starting to transform into back to the soft, gentleness reminiscent of the beginning of the song.  "Living on the Edge" by Aerosmith is about six minutes long. From 3:33 to 3:40, there is a 7-second pause which indicates a change from the previous part of the...

Seeing Lou during the different stages of his life offers the viewer a different perspective of Lou. Egan's non-chronological structure allows the reader to envision the characters at different stages of their life. The foculizer in each chapter changes, which allows the reader to see the multiple sides there are to Lou: the charming side, the disengaged father, and the old man who goes after younger girls. Within each chapter, the reader's perspective on the character changes in accordance with the foculizer's relationship to the character. These multiple perspectives allow for a more multidimensional character. In the chapter "Ask Me If I Care," the reader meets Lou through Rhea's perspective. Lou is forty-three years old and he picks up Jocelyn hitchhiking. They eventually form a relationship even though Jocelyn is younger than Lou's oldest daughter. Lou is presented as a man who is struggling with the progression of time. He throws wild parties, d...