Scan barcode
A review by myhandmadehell
A Gambler's Anatomy by Jonathan Lethem
5.0
A Gambler's Anatomy may be one long backgammon game. I am not savvy to backgammon strategy though, so I'm going to go with another metaphor: prison.
As a successful and worldly gambler, Alexander Bruno believes himself to be free, having painstakingly and carefully extricated himself from what he viewed as his first "prison": Berkeley, CA, where he lived a difficult and restrictive life with his drug-addled mother. Believing he is free, Bruno travels the world "relieving rich men of their delusions that they are good backgammon players" and raking in dough hand over fist. He often discusses that backgammon is less a game of board strategy but of being able to read your opponent and leap to "double" when signs of hesitation reveal cracks in their bravado. How ironic then when his unexpected and whirlwind experimental tumor recision surgery renders him incapable of facing the world without a mask to hide his new face.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Prison. As a "free man" and professional gambler, Bruno soon realizes that his freedom is only an illusion fueled by his ability to win. When his long lucky streak runs bad, thanks to an effort on his part to "test" his freedom by playing a dream-like, cocaine-and-hamburger-fueled unscheduled game with an old acquaintance, he must win back his losses in an effort to supplicants to his warden, his handler and backer. This ends in disaster when the "blot", a circle of black at the center of his vision, reveals its true nature as a fatal and untreatable tumor.
As the story continues, this seemingly worldly and experienced gambler shows his utter inexperience in the world; he turns out to be surprisingly and painfully naive. Every effort to spread the wings he believes he has ends in a prison transfer. He floats from one prison to another, almost foolishly feeling different types of freedom in each one but never drawing breath as a truly free man.
This book is LOADED with symbolism and could probably be discussed at great length, but I'll end it here. It was funny, painful, tragic, engaging, and classically bizarre in a very Lethem way. It disturbed me on several levels, but I loved every page.
As a successful and worldly gambler, Alexander Bruno believes himself to be free, having painstakingly and carefully extricated himself from what he viewed as his first "prison": Berkeley, CA, where he lived a difficult and restrictive life with his drug-addled mother. Believing he is free, Bruno travels the world "relieving rich men of their delusions that they are good backgammon players" and raking in dough hand over fist. He often discusses that backgammon is less a game of board strategy but of being able to read your opponent and leap to "double" when signs of hesitation reveal cracks in their bravado. How ironic then when his unexpected and whirlwind experimental tumor recision surgery renders him incapable of facing the world without a mask to hide his new face.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Prison. As a "free man" and professional gambler, Bruno soon realizes that his freedom is only an illusion fueled by his ability to win. When his long lucky streak runs bad, thanks to an effort on his part to "test" his freedom by playing a dream-like, cocaine-and-hamburger-fueled unscheduled game with an old acquaintance, he must win back his losses in an effort to supplicants to his warden, his handler and backer. This ends in disaster when the "blot", a circle of black at the center of his vision, reveals its true nature as a fatal and untreatable tumor.
As the story continues, this seemingly worldly and experienced gambler shows his utter inexperience in the world; he turns out to be surprisingly and painfully naive. Every effort to spread the wings he believes he has ends in a prison transfer. He floats from one prison to another, almost foolishly feeling different types of freedom in each one but never drawing breath as a truly free man.
This book is LOADED with symbolism and could probably be discussed at great length, but I'll end it here. It was funny, painful, tragic, engaging, and classically bizarre in a very Lethem way. It disturbed me on several levels, but I loved every page.