“The Blot Inside: Jonathan Lethem’s A Gambler’s Anatomy, Lack, Dissent, and Corporate Power”

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper argues that the blot in A Gambler’s Anatomy exists in a long line of deep metaphors in Lethem’s work, an ancestor of “Lack” in As She Climbed Across the Table (1997) and the giant hole in the center of Manhattan in Chronic City. In the context of this story, which casts Stolarsky as the pantomimic capitalist villain, it can be interpreted as an ideological blind spot which prevents the protagonist from recognizing his entrapment in a cycle of economic dependency. Its removal should signal an awakening, therefore, but Lethem resists this move. Instead, Bruno is forced to don a mask and is ensnared within a Stolarsky empire which seems to have no outer limits. Even the anti-capitalist riot in which Bruno becomes involved might well have been orchestrated by the arch-capitalist himself. A Gambler’s Anatomy, then, represents Lethem’s most committed critique of corporate power and asks whether it is even possible to step outside its structures and demands.