GRGR(6) - Ep. 15 Reader Dissonance.

[jporter]

Jill lookin' for a thrill:

>Having chunked GR across the room I am de lurking to ask "WHY?"

I screamed like a mandrake root when I read that.

>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. 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.

Pulled? Well, yes. You were ekshpecting maybe to be pushed?

>(ducking flames : O) Its like listening to a year long solo guitar riff
>from some glam 70's spandex player who doesn't care if you like it or not.
>Maybe that's why I don't get the book. Maybe that's it. It's a 70's book
>and if you didn't get anything out of the 70's you won't understand the
>book. My colleague and I have one thing in common. We have chosen to read
>things that we consider awful so that we can be on the inside of some
>knowlege about the books.

Ah, yes (again) the dreaded inside, Gottfried-like, but this time trapped,
not in a rocket, or, like Oedipa, in a metaphor- as when she was hugging a
filthy alcoholic bum- but, in a REAL 70's disco! No exits. Strobes. Very
wide bell-bottoms- whole families could camp out in one leg of these bells-
platforms, the Bee Gees...the seventies...Makes being on the outside, as in
born, almost palatable.

Also, I have enjoyed all of the rest of TRP save
>this one. Okay I did enjoy the Disgusting English Candy Drill. And the
>toilet scene. And the part about the bra in the bombed out building. And
>the cute meet and I like it whenever Jessica talks, "Don't be redic! This
>book is terrif! And if you don't like it, what's the diff?"

The dt, as the cognoscenti say, is between a shadow and its doubt. Now shut
your eyes wide and imagine that you're real. Something from nothing is
always more than it was before it wasn't. Beyond the zero, I mean.
Existence is the last stop. No duality allowed. No opposite to use for
contrast. No ground no figure, just....giving back what was granted before
you take it.

And yet somehow, oddly, there are others:

>
>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 and how flimsy the premise of discovering
>where the bombs are going to fall based on some character's erections. I
>surely hope the plot gets better than it is at this point. Thank god that
>these exact same listers are also contributing helpful information to
>actually understand the GR. Who is Slothrop really? He doesn't cotton on to
>the bomb/sex thing, and I can't sympathize with any chick who would think
>Slothrop is hot enough to sleep with, because there isn't much substance to
>his character. Are people being paid to sleep with him?  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 do not understand what "beyond the zero" means.

It means that which is beyond understanding.

jody, who is not above sitting down with the Shanty Irish.