GRGR(6) - Ep. 15 Reader Dissonance.

[Gary Thompson]

Hi, Jill. 

Re getting through _GR_ with your copy of the book intact--you might see
if one of the many summaries can help you. Try Hyperarts--I think Redbug
has two summaries there, along with a very useful glossary. (No wind
entries, though.)

Has anyone seen a Cliff's Notes for GR?

There's some hard news coming: you really have to re-read _GR_, just as
you do _Ulysses_ or _Hamlet_ or _Moby-Dick_; there's no getting it on
the first try. I doubt that you'll see much coherence or direction to
the plot until about p. 300. But I wouldn't be in such a rush to dismiss
P just yet: you pretty much have to give a serious writer his head until
you see what's going on.

Ask Meg about her first-time P experience (I'd suggest the P-list
archives, but they're a bit problematic right now).

Jill Adams wrote:

> 
> Having chunked GR across the room I am de lurking to ask "WHY?"
> 
> So coincidental that Gary mentions Hannibal. I was chatting with a
> colleague just hours ago who read Hannibal and said it was awful. An awful
> read -- that was how he put it. 

It's awful, I think, if you expect much. If you want a book on the
beach, standard grade. How many really good novels are published in a
year?

> So what a coincidence that I am finding GR
> is also mostly for me is also an awful read. This reader is being pulled
> back and forth in modes of the author's annoying self-masturbatory writing.

Not to be picky, but do you need that "self-" there? 

I think that if you read further you'll find that P addresses others in
many modes. 

[snip]

> Lately, Gary T. , rj and Michael P. have pointed out references to
> Slothrop's character or other things that just drive home for me how HOLLOW
> the character of Slothrop is . . . 

Well, yeah, that was the question. But instead of assuming that P was
trying to make him *non*-hollow, what do we do with the hollowness? Or,
rather, what does the text do with it, or we with the text? 

Our recently departed Dudious Maximus was fond of calling _GR_ a
Menippean satire, which puts it in a different taxonomy from a novel
with Fully Realized Characters. If you try to make this the Story of
Slothrop, better stock up on some additional copies, because Viking's
so-called perfect binding is never gonna survive into the Mittelwerke.

And Slothrop does have his moments. Just you wait.

  And like Jeremy I
> force myself to reread chapters after getting almost zilch out of them. At
> least with M&D we got lots of depth of character definition for both
> characters in the very first few pages.

I didn't hear Jeremy say that in general, only about one small portion,
and he expressed temporary confusion rather than saying he got zilch  .
. . 

> I do not understand what "beyond the zero" means.

But you're asking the right question here. In one of its functions, the
novel's a teaser and it asks you to put some of the pieces together into
an image of your own perceptions. 

Gary Thompson