Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner
I finished this book yesterday, but I didn’t really know how to write a review about it, because my feelings are complicated. It is a novel that reads like a memoir. I had seen that the author is a poet and that this is his first novel. I don’t know if it is semi-autobiographical, but I can only assume that some things are, considering the character telling this story is a poet. The writing is really pretty (I honestly have no other word for it, I wish there was a better way to put it).
There is an excerpt where he describes what a bad day feels like; how it can come on at any moment and you just sink into it. Of course it’s exaggerated by him being all poetical, high, and depressed. (It made me think of the scene in Howls Moving Castle, the film not the book, when he becomes all slimy from being sad about his hair.) The whole book, every few pages you go and then stop and say, “what the fuck did I just read? That. Meant. Something.” I mean that in a profound, thought provoking way, not in an I don’t understand what is happening sort of way. Or maybe it just means something to me right now because I’m going through a phase.
The character is basically trying to figure out his worth in the scheme of things, what his purpose in life is, faking it until something “real” comes along, etc. He is relatable because he doesn’t know what to do with himself and who has never felt that way? On the flip side, you want to punch him in the face because he is an asshole and a manipulative liar. Which could be exacerbated by the misuse of prescription drugs taken with chasers of alcohol and weed. It kind of reminds me of reading Catcher in the Rye and how annoying Holden could be.
I liked it.
