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ksoles
Jan 27, 2012ksoles rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
It took Jennifer Egan six years to write "Look at Me," and it shows. This sprawling, ambitious novel links together strange and diverse characters: Moose, a middle-aged ex-jock turned erratic history professor, still reeling from an epiphany he experienced years ago; Charlotte, a teenager longing for love while her brother recovers from leukemia; a furious Lebanese terrorist and an unhappily divorced private detective. Most strikingly, another older Charlotte dominates the narrative, this one a model from New York who has been in a disastrous car accident. Her face has been reconstructed with 80 titanium screws; once her livelihood, it is now a mask she hides behind as she walks past old friends and lovers who show no sign of recognition. Many critics have commented on the uncanny way in which Egan's futuristic visions have come true. Indeed, in an age without webcams, Egan invents a dotcom start-up that approaches Charlotte in the hope that she'll let them record and webcast every detail of her daily life. The author's hinting at terrorist attacks on the United States (the book was published before 9/11) invokes an equal sense of eerieness and unease. The climax that brings all the characters together feels both implausible and predictable yet Egan ultimately creates a commentary on how our own stories are mediated, commodified and shone back at us distortedly. As Charlotte says of her modeling career: "Being observed felt like an action, the only one worth taking. Anything else seemed passive, futile by comparison."