Chronic City

Jonatham Lethem, 2009

"Unimpressive", grunted Thatcher.
"Well, sure," said Abneg. "Totally unimpressive. I wanted to be like one of those apes in whatchamacallit, 2001, by whatsisname, Kubrick, you know, kneeling in fear before those slabs, getting brainzapped."
"I never saw 2001," said Harriet. "It's about apes?"
"Ap-men," said Thatcher helpfully.
"They should change the name of that movie," said Sharon Spencer beside me. "Since the real 2001 turned out so different."
"Listen," said Abneg, with exasperation that we hand't caught his real drift. "I'm trying to tell you about the Stonehenge restroom. I had to piss, so I went in there, it was a completely modern men's room, with all these floor-length ceramic urinals. They didn't have the wit to arrenge them in a circle, but the resemblance was obvious. And whereas everybody was jabbering with the whining children, in here the men were all silent, avoiding each other's eyes. Each of standing at a urinal or waiting our turn, and this profund truth comes over you, a feeling much bigger than anything available outside and across the road, which is that everyone in that restroom just did the exact same thing you did."
"Which is what?" said Naomi Kandel.
"Looked at Stonehenge," said Abneg. "And you were taking a piss, and then you were going to get back in your car."

Nota: Chronic City narra algunos meses en la vida de Chase y Perkus. O la vida de Perkus vista a través de Chase, ambos habitantes de Manhattan.
Personajes unidos por la marihuana llamada Chronic, un tigre, Marlon Brandon, un olor a chocolate que envuelve la ciudad, un sonido chillante que se escucha si no es posible oler el chocolate, una espesa y gris neblina, unos copos de nieve amorfos y una perra con tres patas e hipo. todo esto hilado por la vida de una astronauta, novia de Chase, atrapada en el espacio exterior, con remotas posibilidades de regresar a la tierra. Una novela tan divertida y extraña como Huérfanos de Brooklyn. Igual de necesaria, diría yo.