Jonathan Lethem: The Disappointment Artist

The title is not the sort to endear a reader to purchase but The Disappointment Artist, a collection of essays and memoirs by Brooklyn-based Jonathan Lethem, is well worth exploring.

It is the third instalment in a trilogy of publications by Lethem that began with 2004's epic novel Fortress of Solitude and continued with last year's story collection, Men and Cartoons. All three books explore popular pulp culture such as 1960s and 1970s Marvel comics and the weird, mind-bending science fiction of the late Philip K. Dick.

As for the Disappointment Artist himself, the book title refers to an obscure author, Edward Dahlberg, who was better known for his acerbic reputation as a fierce critic and creative writing teacher than his numerous publications. As Lethem writes, few people have actually read any of Dahlberg's books, which usually end up in remainder shops bargain bins.

"I'd known the name, faintly. From working in used bookshops, I'd fondled a few Dahlberg tomes before slashing their prices and consigning them to the bins of the never-to-be-sold. I associated him with the rebuffed career, the refused book. In used bookselling one becomes a dowser of the underground river of refused books, and the dowsing rod twitches like the second hand of a clock."

Lethem also relates the term to how once favourite artists — post-punk pioneers Talking Heads, film director Stanley Kubrick and author Don DeLillo in his case — can in later years disappoint with their mediocre future output.

And after disappointing with the uneven Men and Cartoons, Lethem is back on form with The Disappointment Artist. He writes enthusiastically and informatively about a disparate, wide range of subjects, including the legacy of seminal comic book artist Jack "King" Kirby, the fascinating history of the New York subway and how he saw Star Wars 21 times when it was released in 1977.

If you enjoyed Fortress of Solitude and Men and Cartoons, you are bound to enjoy The Disappointment Artist as it explores much of the same fantastical territory.

However, if like the university audiences with whom Lethem watched John Wayne's corny and possibly racist western The Searchers, you have no love for the supposedly classic film or if you agree with the author's erstwhile girlfriend who didn't share his undying appreciation of the slow, meandering films of John Cassavetes, then you will struggle with the chapters devoted to those subjects.


* Faber & Faber/Allen & Unwin, $29.99
* Stephen Jewell is an Auckland writer