Pynchonesque puzzlebookdom

[Ya Sam]

>From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. A pastiche of Joyce and Beckett, with heapings of Derrida's 
Glas and Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 thrown in for good measure, 
Danielewski's follow-up to House of Leaves is a similarly dizzying tour of 
the modernist and postmodernist heights—and a similarly impressive tour de 
force. It comprises two monologues, one by Sam and one by Hailey, both 
"Allmighty sixteen and freeeeee," each narrating the same road trip, or set 
of neo-globo-revolutionary events—or a revolution's end: "Everyone loves the 
Dream but I kill it." Figuring out what's happening is a big part of reading 
the book. The verse-riffs narrations, endlessly alliterative and punning 
(like Joyce) and playfully, bleakly existential (like Beckett), begin at 
opposite ends of the book, upside down from one another, with each page 
divided and shared. Each gets 180 words per page, but in type that gets 
smaller as they get closer to their ends (Glas was more haphazard), so they 
each gets exactly half a page only at the midway point of the book: page 
180—or half of a revolution of 360 degrees. A time line of world events, 
from November 22, 1863 ("the abolition of slavery"), to January 19, 2063 
(blank, like everything from January 18, 2006, on), runs down the side of 
every page. The page numbers, when riffled flip-book style, revolve. The 
book's design is a marvel, and as a feat of Pynchonesque puzzlebookdom, it's 
magnificent. The book's difficulty, though, carries a self-consciousness 
that Joyce & Co. decidedly lack, and the jury will be out on whether the 
tricks are of the for-art's-sake variety or more like a terrific video game.

http://www.amazon.com/Only-Revolutions-Mark-Z/dp/0375421769/sr=1-1/qid=1156966067/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-2579859-5605566?ie=UTF8&s=books

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