reading _GR_; hurdles; meanings

[will.miller.ace at artsfb.org.uk]

I remember reading GR immediately after breakfast each morning - after which 
it was back to Finnegans Wake and the endless thesis. I was, however, 
reading Jack Kerouac around then too (the light reading part of the day), 
and I thought (and this may have been noted many times before) that the 
difficult first part was very similar to the language Jack Kerouac used in 
'The Subterraneans'  - it was more 'beat' in its descriptive energy, and 
thus a bit more dense in textual terms compared to the more go-ahead 
narrative of the later half.

Has anyone esle looked at the influences of 'beat' writing on GR - it seemed 
to me that in GR TRP weaned the 'beat' influence out of his writing by just 
writing.
 ----------
From: veg at teleport.com
To: pynchon-l at waste.org; ARTSFBS/ACE/WMILLER
Subject: reading _GR_; hurdles; meanings
Date: 24 May 1996 07:06


   I just finished pressing my eyes on the words of _GR_ for the
first time.  First time completely through, that is.   For the first
150 pages I reread all the book to where I had left off,  and then
another dozen or so pages.   When I read 150-180,  I realised I
would never finish it like this.  I decided to keep reading until
it became difficult again.  It never did.
   The comment about the first part of the book being a set of
hurdles to weed out the, um, innocent.  My sense of reading _tCoL49_,
_V._, and then _GR_ was very much the same.  _tCoL49_ introduces the
story with no beginning or end examining alternative esoteric systems;
_V._ adds multiple threads,  and then _GR_ sends everyone to
Bangladesh to fight crowds on spits of sand.
   Geez, _GR_.  I find I am unable to read any fiction now.
   As to the meaning of the name,  books and books can be written.
I now think the best summation is noting that it is a take-off on
the rainbow yawn.

  veg