Clara’s Verdict
Jonathan Lethem is an acquired taste – and Girl in Landscape, one of his earlier novels, is perhaps the most clearly an acquired taste of all his work. This is science fiction that isn’t really science fiction, a Western that deconstructs the Western, a coming-of-age story that refuses the conventions of coming-of-age stories. At under seven hours in audio, it’s a concentrated read that repays slow attention more than fast consumption. David Aaron Baker’s narration serves the material competently. I don’t think this is Lethem at his best – that honour belongs to The Fortress of Solitude or Motherless Brooklyn – but it is Lethem at his most formally ambitious, and that counts for something.
About the Audiobook
Pella Marsh’s mother dies just as her family flees a post-apocalyptic Brooklyn for the frontier of a recently discovered planet. Her father, ineffectual and grief-stricken, cannot hold the colony together, and Pella finds herself drawn to Efram Nugent, a virile and dangerous loner who exerts a hold over the settlement that is both protective and threatening. The indigenous inhabitants – the Archbuilders – are ancient, passive, and incomprehensible in ways that the human colonists variously ignore, exploit, and fear.
Lethem is consciously writing within the tradition of the space western – John Ford’s The Searchers is an obvious template – while simultaneously interrogating what that tradition does to its characters and its landscapes. The sexual awakening Pella undergoes is rendered with discomfort rather than titillation, and the consequences of human choices for the Archbuilders carry a colonial critique that is fairly explicit once you’re looking for it. The book is slight in the best sense – it says what it needs to say and stops – but the vagueness some readers find frustrating is, in Lethem’s hands, deliberate and thematically coherent.
The Narration
David Aaron Baker reads with a measured quality that suits the novel’s elliptical, atmospheric style. The Archbuilders’ alien quality is suggested rather than performed, which is the right choice – Lethem’s text never makes them comprehensible, and Baker respects that opacity. At 6 hours and 43 minutes, this is an easy listen in terms of time commitment, if not necessarily in terms of content.
What Readers Say
A 3.8-star rating from 145 listeners reflects the novel’s divisive reputation. The negative reviews are specific in their complaints: “everything is very vague,” “the story fell flat,” “don’t learn much about the Archbuilders.” The positive and neutral reviews are equally specific: “reflective science fiction dealing with questions of identity and consciousness,” “an entertaining cowboys and Indians story on another planet,” “good for Lethem fans.” Jim Monk’s review situating the book within the wider space-western tradition is particularly useful contextualisation. This is clearly a book that rewards readers who approach it on its own terms and frustrates those expecting conventional genre pleasures.
Who Should Listen?
Readers who’ve already engaged with Lethem’s other work – particularly Gun, with Occasional Music or As She Crawled Across the Table – will find this an interesting companion piece. Genre-bending science fiction readers who appreciate literary fiction’s methods applied to speculative premises: Ursula K. Le Guin is the obvious touchstone, though Lethem is more uneven and more interested in provocation than comfort. Not recommended for listeners seeking fast plots or clear answers. Very much recommended for those prepared to sit with ambiguity.
Find it on Audible UK: Listen to Girl in Landscape on Audible UK.
