Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Homer and Langley

My teenage daughter keeps me up to date on the weirdness of cable TV's offerings, and one of the weirdest offerings has to be Hoarders, based on the bizarre lives of compulsive pack rats. But before reality TV took hoarding mainstream, America had the Collyers, reclusive brothers who filled their Fifth Avenue brownstone with newspapers, books, old machines, musical instruments, umbrellas, boxes, bales, baby buggies, a Model T Ford--you name it, they likely had it. When they died, rescuers trying to get to them ultimately removed 130 tons of, well, stuff from their building.

E. L. Doctorow takes the unknowable life of the Collyers and goes to town. He tells their imagined story from the viewpoint of Homer, who is musical, intuitive and blind, and therefore subject to the random madness of his brother, Langley. Doctorow takes plenty of liberties to make his story work. In actuality, the brothers died in 1947, but Doctorow realigns their timeline by several decades, allowing the progress of time, in the form of a constant stream of visitors, to intrude on the lives of the brothers. For recluses they have a pretty full dance card, and each era--from the jazz age through the Woodstock Generation, impacts on them despite their barricades of junk. Read this book for its setting, in Manhattan’s poshest landfill--it's mesmerizing.

--Helene


Find it at the library!

No comments:

Post a Comment

What can I post on your wall?
Commenting & Posting Guidelines

Welcome to your library on social media!

Pima County Public Library (PCPL) offers blogs and other social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter for educational, cultural, civic, customer service, and recreational purposes. They provide a limited (or designated) public forum to facilitate the sharing of ideas, opinions, and information about library-related subjects and issues.

By choosing to comment or post on our social media accounts, you agree with the following:

Comments and posts are moderated by library staff, and the library reserves the right to remove any that are unlawful or off topic. Posts containing the following may be deleted:
Copyright violations
Off-topic comments
Commercial material/spam/solicitation
Sexual content, or links to sexual content
Threatening or harassing postings
Libelous or other kinds of personal attacks
Conduct or encouragement of illegal activity
Content that reveals private, personal information without permission
Vulgar language or content
Comments in support of or in opposition to political campaigns or ballot measures
Content that degrades others on the basis of gender, race, class, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability or other classification

P.S. Protect your privacy. Don't post personally identifying information in these public spaces, including details like your library card number, phone number, or medical information, etc.

Young people under age 18, especially, should not post information such as your school, age, phone number, and address.