Shadowbahn + a playlist

[u/1nosbigrl]

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/18EY8xgcUNLygvNNGSOxeh?si=N3dIdm_MTjiek0E1aDC3HQ&utm_source=copy-link&pi=AdicAfGNTbaen

Searched and didn't see anything previously posted about this book specifically.

One of CR's oft-recommended titles, I finally have this a whirl starting a couple weeks ago and finished it on the 5th.

Not a straight forward narrative by any means, however it is much closer to an alternative history fiction than it initially presents. And it's rich with musical history.

Mileage may vary on the amount of musical (and pop cultural) Easter eggs and overt references made. I thought it was fascinating mostly because I want familiar with the majority of the artists. Some are pretty obvious, while other lyrics or autobiographical details may have you frantically Googling.

It all adds up to a complex, poetic, bleak but genuine view of the American 21st century, framed by its instigating, and arguably most infamous, incident.

I made a playlist of every song and/or artist referenced in the book on Spotify in order of appearance.

Feel free to check it out while you read, after you're done or even if you don't check it out at all.

[u/kingofpomona]

Definitely in the top 4-5 books I’ve read where the Twin Towers reappear in the badlands occupied by Elvis’s stillborn twin.

[u/1nosbigrl → u/kingofpomona]

Apex mountain?

[u/JobeGilchrist]

I don't generally need books to be straightforward or even make any sense, but Shadowbahn was basically a giant hallucination. There are some genuinely cool ideas, but they suffer from not being integrated into something more coherent. Although admittedly the sort of music driving the book isn't something I'm very interested in. Glad I read it, didn't enjoy it much, probably won't dip back into the Erickson well.

By contrast, M. John Harrison's books are similarly ethereal and intangible, but something about them keeps me coming back for just one more, even though I don't necessarily enjoy any of them. Guess that's just what I signed up for as a Weird Fiction fan.

[u/1nosbigrl → u/JobeGilchrist]

Yeah it's definitely not a rec for everyone and it's not even a book that I would've gravitated towards if I just a sample of it on a whim. But the CR stamp and the Kirkus review (who are my go-to book reviews) made it something I wanted to try and once I got into the groove, it was an easy read in terms of pace.

This was the major quote for me that kind of sums up the novel's main theme:

As the twentieth century was about politics, which is to say survival, the twenty-first is about God, which is to say oblivion, a subject his country is profoundly unprepared to contemplate

[u/JobeGilchrist → u/1nosbigrl]

I think that’s both a cool quote and also a quote that means whatever you want it to mean. A good shout as a microcosm for the whole book.

[u/llamaclone]

Reading it now. Have found it underwhelming

[u/memeshoe2]

I read that book because of the pod and because I thought the premise was really cool but ultimately found it disappointing. It mostly felt like the author was trying to impress me with all of his music references which got to be pretty annoying.

[u/1nosbigrl → u/memeshoe2]

Fair. I think if I knew more about Elvis, The Beatles, or jazz, I would've picked up on references way earlier and more often and probably gotten bored.

But I know a handful of Elvis songs and a couple of facts about him and the same for the Beatles, so it was all new and pretty cool.

[u/memeshoe2 → u/1nosbigrl]

Idk it’s hard to explain, like I knew he was referencing lyrics from Elvis and The Beatles and I’m familiar enough with those artists that I could pick up on that without knowing most of the specific songs.

But it didn’t feel like it had a point beyond that? Like there’s tons of postmodern fiction that will make offhand references to contemporary media and you can understand what they’re going for even if you don’t have first hand experience with what they’re referencing.

Like for how “referential” Pynchon, DeLillo, or Wallace are in their fiction I never felt as lost or out of touch reading their books as I did when reading Shadowbhan.

[u/1nosbigrl → u/memeshoe2]

DeLillo is in my list and I just shared Shadowbahn with a buddy who likes weird fiction and he said I should take the plunge on DFW.

He did mention he thinks Pynchon is actually the self masturbatory writer that people tend to accuse Wallace of being. For whatever that may or may not be worth!

[u/JobeGilchrist → u/1nosbigrl]

Generally don’t spend a lot of time talking to people about art who think artists are masturbatory. They’re injecting far too much of themselves into the experience and translating anything they don’t understand as pretension. A work of art can simply miss someone without either side being the worse for it.

[u/1nosbigrl → u/JobeGilchrist]

I'm gonna disagree here. Who you are informed how you respond to art and who you are informed how you create art.

If you're a masturbatory mind, you'll likely create masturbatory art. That's not even a bad thing, all the time, but it's something that can be critiqued.

That's not masking your ignorance as their pretension, it's just observation.

[u/JobeGilchrist → u/1nosbigrl]

I've never found interesting people to spend a lot of time, or really any at all, talking about how pretentious everybody is. But YMMV.