The Second Life of Jonathan Lethem: The Acclaimed Author Explains How the Metaverse Entered His Latest Novel

Jonathan Lethem's latest acclaimed book, Chronic City, is the story of an alternate reality New York, but it's less science fiction than a "David Lynch slippage into a more dreamlike reality", as he put it to me in a conversation last week. In Lethem's version of New York, for instance, you can buy copies of the Times with the war news removed, and a giant escaped tiger roams Manhattan.

And as it happens, Lethem's New York also has a Second Life, called Yet Another World. And while minor details are different (the hero accesses SL via direct dial!), Lethem tells me, YAW "would remind you tremendously as Second Life", a virtual world with avatars and content creation.

It's a startling element to add. Famed for novels like the award-winning Motherless Brooklyn and the bestselling Fortress of Solitude, Lethem is often considered among the best American novelists of his generation. (And in that regard, this book probably has the most prominent treatment of a virtual world in a literary work outside sci-fi.) So naturally, I wanted to know how Lethem came to include Second Life of a sort in Chronic City.

"I've been working up to this novel for a long time," says Lethem. One contributing factor was editing the Library of America collection of Philip K. Dick novels, which gave Lethem a chance to elevate the cult science fiction author from a hero of his adolescence into the literary canon. Chronic City plays the same mind game themes of altered reality and consciousness that Dick did so much to innovate, matched to Lethem's sense of contemporary New York in the digital era. "It's a place that's almost like a dry run for virtuality, a real city that's unreal at the same time," as he puts it. "[I]f we're all moving into virtual versions of reality, Manhattan had a head start."

As for Second Life and virtual reality technology, Lethem cites his time living in the Bay Area in the early 90s, when figures like Jaron Lanier (who went on to become an early Second Life advisor) popularized the concept of VR. Lethem found it "charming and ridiculous certainly we were about to upload our bodies", or that it would replace previous mediums. "Books didn't disappear, and we still go into 18th century-style theaters," he notes. "I didn't think our bodies were going to be eligible to be outmoded." Despite this skepticism, Lethem followed the concepts from an engaged perspective, which ultimately made their way into a major subplot of his latest novel. "Here I am witnessing and being seduced by virtuality."

In researching the novel, Lethem didn't join Second Life, but gratifyingly, read New World Notes ("you were definitely a point of reference for me"), and drew even more from the writing of Julian Dibbel, such as Play Money. Julian's work strongly influenced a feature known as "Chaldrons", precious virtual artifacts people in Yet Another World struggle to acquire in Chronic City. eBay also plays an important part of the novel, and as Lethem points out, the online auction system is itself a kind of virtual world, a general store that doesn't exist. (eBay's founder is also an early Second Life investor.)

And though he didn't join Second Life to write Chronic City, Lethem will finally log into SL early next year -- at least to appear on the in-world talk show of journalist Mitch Wagner (who first alerted me to Chronic City with this review he wrote). For Lethem, becoming an avatar after writing the novel fits a larger pattern. After writing Motherless Brooklyn, which features a hero with Tourette's Syndrome, Lethem found himself asked to participate in panels about the disorder; after writing Motherless Brooklyn, which features a hero who's a music reviewer, Lethem wound up writing about music for Rolling Stone. "My fiction ends up predicting my life," he says, cheekily dubbing it "retroactive autobiographical work."

As for Second Life and virtual worlds, Jonathan Lethem says Chronic City explores them as subjects for readers who might not otherwise be personally interested with them. "My book is my own tentative step in that direction, to say, 'Hey look this is part of real life'."

Photo of Lethem from his Wikipedia profile.

Comments

[Delinda Dyrssen]

Wow its a great compliment to Hamlet/NWN that it was used as a "Point of Reference" for the book but come on in Jonathan.. We wont bite!.. well most of us wont.

[Hamlet Au]

It's hugely gratifying, I've been an admirer of Lethem since his early science fiction!

[Arcadia Codesmith]

"Most of us won't"? But why take chances!Have I got a deal for you! Genuine wooden stake, hand carved from fine English yew and guaranteed effective against virtual vamps and other forms of digital parasites, on sale this week only...

[Corcosman Voom]

Initial foray into SL will be the Copper Robot show? I'm sure the production crew will give him some orientation before show time. It could be a tad difficult getting through an interview without a little practice.