Lethem

Reading Lethem there was one line that struck me as oddly familiar and for a while I could not figure out why. I thought maybe it was Placebo effect... since I'm reading about how everything's a copy, maybe that's what I'm seeing in this work. However, once I got to the end I realized it was not the case and in fact there was a number of references and stolen idea Lethem had. The one that struck me was "I'm a cork on the ocean of a story, a lead on a windy day. Pretty soon I'll be blown away" (Lethem 225) since it is from a Beach Boys song, music that I listen to relatively often. Lethem uses it to describe himself as a novelist and how temporary he is in the long run. He is only in the game for a limited period of time, the game being writing, however what he writes will remain forever. He then condones the usage of his ideas by others in a different context as he claims that these ideas were never his in the first place. I chose this passage primarily because it struck me as oddly familiar the second I read, and secondarily because I see it as part of a powerful message to the reader. It takes the idea of his essay and then turns it into a personal paragraph, a personal message. Something taken from a light and simple song from 1971 is turned into a message from writer to reader saying, I'm not here for a long time, but my work is here, and feel free to use it as they were never truly mine.