RaveThe Slate Book ReviewBen Lerner’s second novel begins with the moment it becomes a commodity … 10:04 never lets Ben, or the reader, off the hook by pretending that having a child or getting married or chilling out might somehow avert the world-historical crises at the end of his every train of thought. After all, they won’t … These disparate ingredients are held together by a set of overlapping motifs: the effect of commodity value on art; terrified adults attempting to reassure children; the transcendent emptying of assigned meanings and values. The echoes and repetitions are so explicit as to suggest poetry more than the novel as it’s usually practiced.
