doktor's pre(in)scriptions

[Joe Varo]

On Fri, 7 Mar 1997 doktor at primenet.com wrote:

> [...]
> I think the reason so many people start but do not finish
> GR is because all that disruption of the reader's expectations and gets
> wearisome after, say, 400 pages.

For what it's worth, the first time I read GR, maybe 10 years ago or so,
what I found so bothersome was not so much that is disrupted my
expectations of how a novel should be structured but the fact that I just
couldn't keep track of who and what was going on.  There are just so many
characters flying in and out of the book, and just so damned much
information to be absorbed and retained.  Even now, on my third (fourth?)
reading I find myself having to go back to already read sections in order
to relate the current section to the rest of the book.  It's easier to do
after the first couple of readings, but that first one was a doozey.

> BTW, John, you wrote: "GR, like all of P.'s writing, creates much more than
> it clasms."  Is that last word a typo, or merely confirmation of my own
> ignorance?  And if the former, what was it supposed to be?  Clasps?
> Claims?
> [...]

I think John was coining a new word, derived from iconoclas[m][tic].  That
is, if one is iconoclastic, then one "clasms" the icons.

Joe