Look At Me

When I was a kid living out in the middle of nowhere, trips in the car meant a lot of time to pretend fight - always followed by real fighting - with my brothers, to play the alphabet game or 20 questions and mostly to stare at other cars. Passing cars were my first glimpse at a world bigger than myself, hinting at the enormous number of lives I wasn't a part of. I still have that feeling when I look over at another driver and am amused (sometimes scared) to think that they believe their lives are just as important as mine (probably more important), they have huge networks of people they love, hate and work with, and they have likes and dislikes similar in quantity - if not quality - to mine.

Reading Jennifer Egan's Look At Me felt like getting to see into the lives of the people in those cars. I was fascinated by the the way the characters used their own images and those they projected onto others to interact with everyone around them. They looked at themselves and others and thought about what it means to be pretty, ugly, average, sick, fat, foreign or famous, hiding those characteristics or desperately hoping they get noticed by others. If someone were to look inside my brain, I sometimes think they might be appalled by how much I think about my own image, but I wouldn't believe most people if they said they didn't do the same thing. Every person considers their own image and is at least aware that their outward appearance says something, even if they are mistaken about what they're really saying.

Several characters in the book were constantly on the lookout for "shadow selves," the person underneath the image. (These same characters were also practiced in appearing outwardly calm and uninterested.) On top of reading someone's clothes, expressions, gestures, haircut, glasses and facial hair, they look for whatever it is in someone's voice, eyes, stride and mannerisms that gives away their true selves. After reading the book I had begun to do the same thing, but being inexperienced I found I could only think about it in regard to myself. I am not usually very careful about letting my emotions and thoughts be read pretty clearly through my expressions and behavior, but it's interesting to think about the power that gives to other people.

My mom is fond of the idea that you shouldn't cast pearls before swine, and that to tell someone how you feel and what you think is often to open yourself up to someone who doesn't deserve it. While I don't usually buy into that thought, I have started warming up to the idea over the past few years. I spend a lot of time worrying about whether the average person on the street would find me attractive with my glasses on, or whether I could make my coworkers really like me if I tried hard enough, or whether or not my dad knows I'm right and he's wrong, or especially whether or not people know where I stand on important issues. While I hate to close myself off to the world even more than I already have (partly for fear that I'll never be able to be vulnerable with anyone), there is something to the idea of keeping myself to myself. It borders on the adolescent feeling, though, that "no one understands me," and seems likely to lead towards alienation.

Every person wants to be seen by someone: parents, siblings, the cool kid at school, a good-looking person, the media, the world. Look At Me explores what it means to be a person in 21st-century America through the eyes of idiots, geniuses, the mediocre, those outside our culture and those who embody it. While it might not withstand a lot of critical scrutiny, I highly recommend it for a solid, entertaining, fast read that's also pretty insightful. (Also - and I won't spoil it for those who haven't read it and want to - Egan created a character who makes her seem just short of clairvoyant. If you are interested in reading this book, don't dig too deep about it before you do.)


Side note: As so many contemporary books are, Look At Me was nearly ruined by a completely unnecessary epilogue. I empathize with the need to wrap things up neatly, but have come to realize that I, as a reader, am usually better off imagining for myself how characters end up. Most epilogues are just evidence of not trusting your readers to be thoughtful people, and this one epitomized that idea.