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Girl In Landscape

by Jonathan Lethem
Girl In Landscape

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  • Synopses & Reviews

ISBN13: 9780375703911
ISBN10: 0375703918
Condition: Standard


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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

One the irrepressibly inventive Jonathan Lethem could weld science fiction and the Western into a mesmerizing novel of exploration and otherness, sexual awakening and loss. At the age of 13 Pella Marsh loses her mother and her home on the scorched husk that is planet Earth. Her sorrowing family emigrates to the Planet of the Archbuilders, whose mysterious inhabitants have names like Lonely Dumptruck and Hiding Kneel—and a civilization that and frightens their human visitors.


On this new world, spikily independent Pella becomes as uneasy envoy between two species. And at the same time is unwilling drawn to a violent loner who embodies all the paranoid machismo of the frontier ethic. Combining the tragic grandeur of John Ford's The Searchers and the sexual tension of Lolita and transporting them to a planet light years, Girl in Landscape is a tour de force. 

Review

"[T]his lyrical, often far-fetched meditation on the founding myths of the 21st century remains thoroughly rooted in an emotional world much closer to home." Publishers Weekly

Review

"A cool, quirky, and oddly compelling coming-of-age story that raises questions that linger long after the book is read." Booklist

Review

"[I]ngenious and unsettling....Wonderful stuff. One waits eagerly to learn where Lethem will take us next." Kirkus Reviews

Review

"Girl in Landscape is, really, a perfect little book — innovative, intelligent, surprisingly moving (your heart will lurch a bit at passages you never saw coming), and utterly inventive, it also sheds new light on the loss of innocence and other sacrifices that come with becoming an adult. Whether or not you're a fan of Lethem's other work, this book should not be missed." Jill Owens, Powells.com (read the entire Powells.com review)

Synopsis

Anyone who wonders why Jonathan Lethem is the only novelist to be included among Newsweek's "100 People for the New Century" need only read his deliriously original new book, a science fiction/Western that combines the tragic momentum of The Searchers with the sexual tension of Lolita.

At the age of 13, Pella Marsh emigrates with her family to the Planet of the Archbuilders. These enigmatic aborigines have names like Lonely Dumptruck and and Hiding Kneel — and a civilization that baffles and frightens their human visitors.

As the spikily independent Pella becomes an uneasy envoy between two species, Girl in Landscape deftly interweaves themes of exploration and otherness, loss and sexual awakening.


About the Author

Jonathan Lethem was born in New York and attended Bennington College. He is the author of the novels Gun, with Occasional Music; Amnesia Moon; and As She Climbed Across the Table; as well as a collection of short stories, The Wall of the Sky the Wall of the Eye. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Exclusive Essay

Read an exclusive essay by Jonathan Lethem

5 2

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Average customer rating 5 (2 comments)

`
ihatehate , February 08, 2010
Girl in Landscape is a beautifully written science fiction story about a girl coming of age on a strange new planet. The main character, Pella Marsh, finds her life drastically changing and many demands are put upon her by her family, her new home and by the very small community she has been brought to. Lonely and confused, she finds solace in the planet itself. This story is unique and moving. One of my all time favorites!

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`
Shoshana , January 25, 2007 (view all comments by Shoshana)
+ Worldbuilding, careful word choice, not over-expository - Ending a little rushed This is the third novel I?ve read by Lethem, and I may have to read them all. In this genre (he writes in several), Lethem creates what I?d call literary science fiction. Here (and in Amnesia Moon) the reader is immediately in medias res with little preliminary exposition and even less later clarification. This works only because Lethem is so skillful at evoking environments and social circumstances through spare, nuanced prose. Though their styles and concerns are not particularly similar, Ursula K. Le Guin?s most recent novels utilize similar techniques. The characters know where they are and why it is the way it is; the reader enters almost as an accidental observer, able to see only a small segment of a broader but obscured world. Girl in Landscape is a bildungsroman in which the main character, the 13-year old Pella Marsh, comes of age on an alien planet, and in doing so, perhaps also signals a greater coming of age for humanity. Lethem deftly captures both adolescent angst and interpersonal complexity and shows the relationship between the qualities of the characters? psychology and expectations and their ways of seeing and understanding the world they inhabit. The landscape of the title is interior and exterior, physical and social, real and metaphorical. Overtly a tale of misplaced hopes and xenophobia, this is also a narrative of self-discovery and acknowledgement. I only wish the concluding sections had been about 20 pages longer and slightly more archetypal. Still, a terrific read.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780375703911
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
01/26/1999
Publisher:
BALLANTINE BOOKS
Series info:
Vintage Contemporaries
Pages:
288
Height:
.64IN
Width:
5.13IN
Thickness:
.50
Number of Units:
1
Copyright Year:
1999
UPC Code:
2800375703913
Author:
Jonathan Lethem
Author:
Jonathan Lethem
Subject:
Life on other planets
Subject:
Science Fiction and Fantasy-A to Z
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
Science fiction
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
Bildungsromane.
Subject:
Life on other planets -- Fiction.

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