A visit from the Goon Squad
A Visit from the Goon Squad
In A Visit from the Goon Squad there are stories in each chapter in which many include Bennie Salazar (an old rock music executive) and his old assistant Sasha and his friends. The book follows the lives of these characters as they grow older and life sends them in different paths that they weren’t really supposed to go in. The book goes back in forth (from the past to the future) in the late 1960s to 2020 in and around New York City, sometimes the story goes into Africa, Italy, and California.
The term “Goon Squad” was originated from groups with violent thugs would harm anyone that they believed against. Later on the term “Goon” referred to any violent thug and that’s where the Metaphor comes in. In the story Bosco (Bennie’s friend) in chapter “A to B” says “Time’s a goon, right” (96) which refers to the way time and fate rob most of the characters childhood in the book, innocence and success. Time is the stealth goon, the one you ignore because you are so busy worrying about the goons right in front of you. As Bosco continues to complain “How did I go from being a rock star to being a fat f*** no one cares about?” I chose this quote because although some of the characters do end up finding happiness, they prove it’s always a limited happiness and it is rarely in the form that you want it to be in. Though the progression of time depresses and disappoints many of the characters of A Visit from the Goon Squad, as the novel nears its close, Egan suggests an alternative. The advance and takeover of technology, as Egan admits via her final chapter, is inevitable.
The quote that I picked was “5 sets of keys, 14 pairs of sunglasses, a child’s striped scarf, binoculars, a cheese grater, a pocketknife, 28 bars of soap, 85 pens” (2) I chose this quote because these items really symbolized her, these items came from shoplifting. It was to remind he of her shoplifting ways and it was always going to be there staring straight at her face.
In A Visit from the Goon Squad there are stories in each chapter in which many include Bennie Salazar (an old rock music executive) and his old assistant Sasha and his friends. The book follows the lives of these characters as they grow older and life sends them in different paths that they weren’t really supposed to go in. The book goes back in forth (from the past to the future) in the late 1960s to 2020 in and around New York City, sometimes the story goes into Africa, Italy, and California.
The term “Goon Squad” was originated from groups with violent thugs would harm anyone that they believed against. Later on the term “Goon” referred to any violent thug and that’s where the Metaphor comes in. In the story Bosco (Bennie’s friend) in chapter “A to B” says “Time’s a goon, right” (96) which refers to the way time and fate rob most of the characters childhood in the book, innocence and success. Time is the stealth goon, the one you ignore because you are so busy worrying about the goons right in front of you. As Bosco continues to complain “How did I go from being a rock star to being a fat f*** no one cares about?” I chose this quote because although some of the characters do end up finding happiness, they prove it’s always a limited happiness and it is rarely in the form that you want it to be in. Though the progression of time depresses and disappoints many of the characters of A Visit from the Goon Squad, as the novel nears its close, Egan suggests an alternative. The advance and takeover of technology, as Egan admits via her final chapter, is inevitable.
The quote that I picked was “5 sets of keys, 14 pairs of sunglasses, a child’s striped scarf, binoculars, a cheese grater, a pocketknife, 28 bars of soap, 85 pens” (2) I chose this quote because these items really symbolized her, these items came from shoplifting. It was to remind he of her shoplifting ways and it was always going to be there staring straight at her face.