A sandwich for finishing the book

[Andrew Dinn]

John Roca writes:

> Later that summer I found GR in the bargain bin.  Notwithstanding my best
> efforts, I was even more confused with it than when I had attempted V.
> After a month, I likewise gave it up, but later started over.  I slowly
> discovered that the obnly way for me to initially complete it was to just
> read and not even to attempt to understand it.  A different method of
> reading for me.  

This is actually the nub of the matter with books like `Gravity's
Rainbow'. Once you get one of them you get them all. My first such
encounter was with Ulysses, which I was motivated to persevere with by
its `recognized classic' status. It took several reads before I began
to understand what was going on. After that the next encounter was
Tristram Shandy. A school teacher had pushed it at me in an attempt (I
shite ye not) to fuel a literary interest ignited by Peake's
Gormenghast trilogy but I had dropped it after about 50 pages.
Following Ulysses (interlaced with Eliot and Dickens) I picked it up
again and found it delightfully lucid, almost transparently devious,
in its layering and collapsing of narrative threads. By the time I got
to `Gravity's Rainbow' structural complexities were far more welcome
than problematic. Ditto for Gaddis and Moby Dick which I read
subsequently.

By the way, while we are (well I am) talking about such books, I have
just commenced reading Brian Stonehill's book, `The Self-Conscious
Novel', which looks at the novels of Joyce, Nabokov, Gaddis, Barth and
our hero, also looking back at `Don Quixote' and `Tristram Shandy'.
I'm still only on chapter one but it is already very enjoyable,
presenting a very lucid account of how these books distinguish
themselves from more conventional literature. And suggesting that such
a (mark of) distinction has both literary and moral-cum-didactic
merits. I'll maybe post more full praise as I progress but for now
suffice to say that its opening salvo provides a nice argument why our
hero's work is intrinsically (intrinsic vs extrinsic is central to the
argument) one step beyond the Grishams and Kings of this world.


Andrew Dinn
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Daran, nachdem die Wasserwogen / Von unsrer Suendflut sich verzogen
Der allerschoenste Regenbogen / Als Gottes Gnadenzeichen steht!