Tenenbaums [work] -

And that, ultimately, is the legacy of the name: that family is a strange, sad, beautiful farce—and we wouldn't have it any other way.

Over by the poetry section, Richie stood with a tennis racket bag slung over one shoulder. He was the portrait of a nervous breakdown held together by a pair of sunglasses and a beard. He was staring intently at a book by Eli Cash—or maybe it was just a book about deep-sea diving—but his mind was clearly miles away, submerged in the waters of a forbidden love. He had the posture of a man waiting for a serve he knew he couldn't return. Every few seconds, he would remove his sunglasses, wipe a smudge off the lens with his shirt, and put them back on, a ritualistic attempt to clarify a world that had gone blurry. tenenbaums

: A historical novel Eli describes as presupposing that Custer might not have died at the Battle of Little Big Horn. Family of Geniuses And that, ultimately, is the legacy of the

Trailing him was Chas. It was impossible to miss the red track suit. It was a loud, urgent red, a screaming siren against the muted earth tones of the bookshelves. Chas moved with the kinetic, paranoid energy of a man trying to outrun a tragedy that had already caught him. He wasn't looking at books; he was looking at exits. He checked his watch, then checked it again, his eyes darting around the room, calculating the structural integrity of the shelves, probably deciding if they were sturdy enough to hide behind during a fire. Two boys, dressed in matching Adidas jumpsuits, shadowed him, silent and solemn, like tiny bodyguards for a president of a crumbling nation. He was staring intently at a book by

What makes "Tenenbaums" a lasting term is the specific grammar of its sadness. It is not tragedy, nor is it nihilism. It is .

: A non-fiction book about her children's extraordinary upbringing. Dudley's World

One cannot discuss the Tenenbaums without acknowledging the meticulous visual language of their world: