Official Review: Anomie by Jeffrey Lockwood

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H0LD0Nthere
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Official Review: Anomie by Jeffrey Lockwood

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[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Anomie" by Jeffrey Lockwood.]
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3 out of 4 stars
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“Remember, this is a journey you’re on. When you’ve finished it, you’ll be a different man. And, when that happens, a woman will come to you, and she’ll bring you all that you desire. You’ll know she’s the one the moment you first see her. You’ll know by her smile.”

These words are spoken to the main character of Anomie by his dead wife, right after he has told her that he “should forget about finding love again.” He has lost her to death (though she still visits him in visions), and he has just been through a painful breakup with another woman he thought loved him. The wife’s speech nicely captures the plot and tone of the book.

“Anomie” is defined on the title page as “social instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values; also personal unrest, alienation, and uncertainty that comes from a lack of purpose or ideals.” Anomie, the novel, is about the personal experience of the main character (“Michael”) with both these phenomena.

Michael’s sense of alienation from the world around him starts early. The son of an Indian man and a white woman, he grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He was torn between his father’s world of fishing and old tribal stories, and his mother’s world of high-powered academia. He preferred the former, but was cast decisively into the latter when his father died.

So Michael goes on to become a successful academic, but always feels like a fish out of water. After his wife’s death and a few other tragedies which I won’t spoil, Michael finds himself at the end of his rope: struggling with grief and substance abuse, barely able to function. He takes a job teaching English in China, where he lands on his feet and gets a little bit stable, only to bottom out again.

The book follows Michael through his many ups and downs, until he finally finds redemption. In the process, the narrative moves freely back and forth through time to incrementally fill in the holes in the reader’s knowledge of what exactly happened with Michael’s wife … father … mother … career. It is also a bit of a cultural tour. We have some delightful vignettes set in the Ukraine, where Michael goes to teach for a while, and much of the action takes place in China, where we get to see a lot of the expat experience (at least, one expat’s experience), plus a nice skewering of the different types of people who go to teach English in China.

But ultimately, this book is not primarily about the places or cultures where it takes place. It’s all about Michael, his inner life, and his struggles. It’s a book about a sensitive, mystical, alienated, analytical academic, and it reads like it was also written by one.

Many of the conversations in the book seem to take place between people who are both shockingly analytical, as if it were Michael talking to himself. For example, in one scene, Michael’s wife has apparently come back from the dead to talk to him about … global warming. In another, she says to him, “Your love for me was conditional. As long as I was beautiful, domesticated, and available, you were in love with me.” That’s quite an accusation to make to someone who has idolized his dead wife and has been paralyzed by grief for her throughout much of the book. Most men would, I think, deny the accusation, bluster, or at least sit there gob-smacked. Michael simply responds, “OK, point taken …” and moves on with the conversation. If he is going to acknowledge what she just said (which seems like a pretty big concession), I’d at least expect a line about how much the truth hurts. Or maybe an apology. But we get neither. That’s what I mean by it seeming as though Michael were talking to himself.

(Arguably, Michael’s conversations with his deceased wife actually are Michael-talking-to-himself, but we encounter the same problem from time to time in conversations with other characters, such as his mother and certain friends and colleagues. It’s not that these people don’t differ from Michael at all, but they express themselves in exactly the same way as he does, and there will occasionally be moments like the one described above, where one character drops what ought to be a bombshell and the other character appears not to react to it much.)

Readers should be warned that the second half of the book contains a number of sex scenes so explicit that I can only describe them as porn. They are mercifully brief, but jarring and gratuitous. With one exception, none of the details in them advance the plot. There is even one instance where we are taken into a flashback solely to get a much closer look at an affair that we have just been reliably told happened.

To sum up, Anomie is sort of a modern Sorrows of Werther type of book. I enjoyed the tours of the Ukraine, China, and Upper Michigan, but after a while I got very tired of gazing at Michael’s navel with him. However, I can’t give the book a low rating, because it is very competently written. The characters are well-drawn (despite several of them being Michael clones), as are the cultural descriptions, flashbacks, jokes, and even descriptions of benders. Also, the ending is quite satisfying. So, three out of four stars for Anomie.

******
Anomie
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Post by zeldas_lullaby »

Wow, this book sounds intriguing. Great review!
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H0LD0Nthere
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Latest Review: "Adventures in space & fiction fantasy" by Robin G Howard

Post by H0LD0Nthere »

It is, and thanks for stopping by. :)
Latest Review: "Adventures in space & fiction fantasy" by Robin G Howard
zeldas_lullaby
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Post by zeldas_lullaby »

You're welcome!
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