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A Meaningful Life New York Review Books Classics LJ Davis Jonathan Lethem 9781590173008 Books

Download As PDF : A Meaningful Life New York Review Books Classics LJ Davis Jonathan Lethem 9781590173008 Books

A Meaningful Life New York Review Books Classics LJ Davis Jonathan Lethem 9781590173008 Books

I first heard about L.J. Davis through a couple of essays by Jonathan Lethem (one of my favorite authors), so I figured that I would give Davis a try. This novel, set during the late Sixties/early Seventies, focuses on Lowell Lake, a guy whose life hasn't turned out like he thought it should (I was reminded of Ben Braddock in "The Graduate," thinking life would be "different"), so he ends up buying an old house in a bad part of Brooklyn and tries to renovate it. Prefiguring the hipster gentrification of our modern era by almost fifty years, this is a novel with no easy, reassuring answers about racial divides or the purpose of life, and I loved it. Lowell is at once sympathetic and horrible (especially after the act that closes the novel, which I won't spoil here), and I think this book will stay with me for a long time. Definitely check it out if you get the chance.


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A Meaningful Life New York Review Books Classics LJ Davis Jonathan Lethem 9781590173008 Books Reviews

The first hundred pages of this book are among the best and funniest written about the "domestic politics of exhaustion." Lowell Lake quietly and desperately employs passive resistance in the quotidian war with his wife. For her part, she throws away his clothes and his birth certificate, tells Lowell that she hates how he sits in a chair, manipulates him into moving closer to her parents and wields casual cruelty like a rapier. In one of his few moments of insight or enthusiasm, Lowell blurts out to his wife during their relocation to her home in New York that he is the first member of his family to cross back east over the Mississippi in over a hundred years. Her response "Big deal."

Unfortunately, the second half of the book focuses less on his marriage in order to recount Lowell's attempt to create an identity by renovating a broken down home in Brooklyn. He makes a game attempt but Lowell Lake is a man who has no friends, can't catch a ball and has so little clue that he prefers Linda Thorsen to Diana Rigg on the Avengers. (How's that for an obscure pop cultural reference by Davis?) Lake's failed effort lifts him almost to the level of a tragic hero but the reader remembers him more as the man who wakes up at night and intones aloud, "I am not a nerd."

This a quick and very enjoyable book. Read it for the priceless portraits of Lake's in-laws and for the new level of meaning Lowell Lake's existence brings to the word "meaningful."
Why is it we like Lowell Lake? He is hardly engaged in the world and seems to look down on all those he comes across as bizarre science experiments. Yet, we root for him and wish him every success as he struggles to find meaning in a life that has to this point largely just happened to him. Perhaps it is because he is finally taking the reigns and since he finds no reward in his work or his wife, we hope he will find something - anything. His wife, like most spouses, cuts quickly to the heart of his problem, saying, "That's just great. I can't tell you how that idea really grabs me. What do you think this is? The Jackie Gleason Show?... I have to travel three thousand miles and work my *** off for four years in order to marry a New York cab driver?... I don't believe it. I've never worn a house dress in my life. At least you could have said you wanted to be a riveter.... Riveters make good money and there'd be a nice little pension for me if you walked off a beam up there in the sky. I liked it better when you wanted to be a cowboy." So revealing regarding Lowell's lost boy persona.

The book also appealed because I love all things New York and am fascinated by the 1970's especially. Davis does a fantastic job communicating the social and economic forces of change taking place. Lowell's attempt to move from Manhattan to Brooklyn is almost voyeuristic. His encounters with the various characters are fun and I like to think accurate. The challenges that the renovation brings is at once pathetic, hopeful, and futile. The mansion he purchases and fixates on was built in the mid 19th century by a tycoon, Civil War hero, corporation lawyer, and adventurer. It is "the townhouse of Darius Collingwood, foremost corporation lawyer in the Northeastern United States," which impresses Lowell so much that his pursuit of the twenty-one-room Brooklyn structure becomes his quest and ultimately a pioneer outpost. The biography Davis invents for Darius Collingwood, seems so real and believable that I expect The Bowery Boy's New York History podcast to feature Collingwood.

This New York Book Review Classics edition has an introduction by Jonathan Lethem, author of Chronic City and The Fortress of Solitude. His connection to the author is one of those New York stories that is great unto itself. It is an entertaining read and has turned me onto Davis overall so I look forward to reading his other work.
This is a book that has all of the elements of a great piece of American fiction that misses the mark in several ways. First, let me discuss what made this a good read. I enjoyed the way Davis describes his main protagonist's interactions with his wife, her family, and his parents. I also really enjoyed the chapter where the protagonist goes for the first time to visit the house he ultimately buys -- the scenes of him seeing those living there are incredibly well-written and memorable. Finally, I also liked the conclusion, which is crushing in many ways -- but very common to young men at such a stage of their life.

While this is a good read, it isn't great because Davis tries to do too much here. It becomes confusing, muddled, and a bit over the top. The possible murder? The possible affair? The feeble attempts by the protagonist to reconcile with his wife? All of this -- in the space of some 200 pages -- feels a bit scattered. It would have better, and perhaps more effective, had the story unfolded without some elements. The author could have explored the themes of West to East, decline of America, etc. without some of the more over-the-top aspects.

In the end, it is enjoyable and a good illustration of 1960s urban America, but not a classic.
I first heard about L.J. Davis through a couple of essays by Jonathan Lethem (one of my favorite authors), so I figured that I would give Davis a try. This novel, set during the late Sixties/early Seventies, focuses on Lowell Lake, a guy whose life hasn't turned out like he thought it should (I was reminded of Ben Braddock in "The Graduate," thinking life would be "different"), so he ends up buying an old house in a bad part of Brooklyn and tries to renovate it. Prefiguring the hipster gentrification of our modern era by almost fifty years, this is a novel with no easy, reassuring answers about racial divides or the purpose of life, and I loved it. Lowell is at once sympathetic and horrible (especially after the act that closes the novel, which I won't spoil here), and I think this book will stay with me for a long time. Definitely check it out if you get the chance.