What can be better than a new book by Jonathan Lethem, combined with the time to enjoy and reflect upon it. Lethem's latest offering is The Arrest, a particularly timely piece of speculative fiction that, according to him, is neither dystopian or utopian, but simply a novel set in an indeterminate "not to distant future" in which a severe break from "current reality" has occurred. Given the current break from normalcy being experienced in the world due to the COVID emergency, it's not that difficult to imagine such a different near future. The particular break that has occurred (we are not sure how long ago and why it happened) is the total non-functioning of all technology (transportation, internet, communication, even guns) which throws everyone into a lifestyle that is both disturbing and somewhat appealing (forced "back to nature"). The novel's protagonist, Journeyman (nicknamed Sandy) was, in his past existence, a screenwriter (more like an editor of screenplays) in LA. He ends up in a coastal community in rural Maine, where his sister, Maddy, settled pre-Arrest into her back-to-nature life. Journeyman's colleague in L.A. was a stereotypically brash "genius" in that environment, Peter Todbaum, A morally corrupt, behavourably inappropriate force in his environment, Todbaum suddenly turns up in Sandy's backyard, presumably drawn there by Maddy's presence (some sort of unclear but seemingly negative "relationship" briefly played out when Maddy had visited her brother in L.A.). Todbaum turns up driving a sort of vehicle with hyper-technical abilities (how can it defy the technology-killing Arrest?) and sets himself up as a sort of guru telling tales about the "outside world" (everything is totally localized and cut-off now). The plot plays out, but in unexpected ways. Lethem avoids taking his futuristic story too seriously and riffs on the usual dystopian themes. Is the post-Arrest world a new paradise or a hell? Is the "new society" utopian or dystopian? What's Todbaum's role in the whole story? It's an entertaining and fun as well as thought-provoking novel.
For a review of the book from NY Times, click here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/books/review/jonathan-lethem-arrest.html
