My wonderful and eclectic book group selected Dana Spiotta's novel, Stone Arabia to read this month. It drew comparisons to an earlier book we read, A Visit from the Goon Squad, and it reminded me of Jonathan Lethem's novels The Fortress of Solitude and You Don't Love Me Yet. Contemporary Rock Novels -- is this a new genre? Has music changed and shaped our dialogue and experience so much that now that it's its own thing?
The thing about rock shaping literature is this: I don't know enough about music to ever be the right kind of reader for these novels. I know what I like in music, but what I like is purely aesthetic, and doesn't have to do with (necessarily) excellence, genius, innovation, etc. I feel the same way about food, sometimes. I read what people write about food, and I really think that their senses are more well developed than mine. I know if I think something is yummy or yucky, and it's not often I can get a whole lot more descriptive than that.
But does that matter? Do you have to really understand a subject to appreciate it in a novel? Are we -- the less sophisticated, less nuanced, less knowledgeable readers doomed to diminished enjoyment? If an author writing on the intricacies of early-80's American/British rock can inspire emotional response in me, does it matter if I only understand the broad strokes ("Hey! She said David Bowie! I know him!") and not the subtleties ("Wait, is that band real or fictional?")?
For the moment, I will continue appreciating what I learn about music from novels, and enjoy the oblivion of never really knowing what's real or not.
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