Finished..... far too quickly

[Seb Thirlway]

well hello to the Hole (sic) Krew again...

'been lurking a while, ever since hearing the news back in November (wasn't too switched on to the
channels obviously) that, astounding, TRP was about to dump another shower of heavy tetroid chunks
on us and deliciously addle our preterite brains from on high.

And there it was, 2 days after publication, just got back from a nightmare of a work trip to
Cornwall and a great friend who shall remain nameless had caused this Object to be sitting on the
table in my front room: A Novel by Thomas Pynchon.

Now I've rushed through it far too quickly and finished last night, a few thoughts lower down as
they might be construed as spoilers, but a couple-three things:

1.  HELLO AGAIN!  When was it, 2000? a-and a GR GRoup Read?  Anyway, I'm back, slightly
apprehensive about stepping into this Zone again, Pynchonian things have already started spilling
off the pages and walking out in my life.... It's good to be back, looking forward to the group
read (or what is it being called this time?)
2. YaSam, your discovery of what's written on the seal gave me the biggest laugh since finishing
the book... TRP must be cackling somewhere - nice work.
3. I'm trying to create an account for the P-wiki to add a few crumbs of my own, don't seem to be
getting the confirmation email.  Anyone here know how this works?  Or is it a manual process and
whoever's in charge is too busy reading AtD to attend to it?

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well initial thoughts on finishing AtD:

I can see why some reviewers were disappointed.  I'm not, but I can't say I've even scratched the
surface of the book yet.  Maybe on 2nd or 3rd reading, more slowly.  My head's still spinning with
the ideas and images, but I don't have even the ghost of a handle on what the hell it's about.
Any reviewer who expects to come to a final judgment about this book before early 2007 (i.e. time
to read it a few times) is IMHO deluding themselves.
Gravity's Rainbow casts a long shadow, and I get the impression that some reviewers remember GR
too fondly, and forget too easily how many times it made them struggle back then when they first
read it (took me 3 months on first read).
AtD isn't GR, but then VL and M&D weren't either.  AtD does remind me of GR in a lot of ways,
though what's "missing" (actually missing for some reviewers) is the mad hepcat energy that
powered GR.  New perspectives, riffs and obsessions popped up as fast as new characters and were
focused and brought together (or would be, I hoped) in the mind of Slothrop - a central character,
which AtD doesn't have.  GR seemed to be always just on the edge of revelation - one more
seemingly random diversion across the Zone, one more gloriously-described party, one more chat
with one more weird-cat, and perhaps, in the end, out of the A4, Rilke, Imipolex, Byron the Bulb,
the Tarot, Gottfried's Rome-Berlin Axis, the Counterforce and piled-up quantities of assorted
psychotropics, something might finally click together.  A hepcat book, the idea being that if you
go out and look for it you might not find the Rocket but you'll find all kinds of weird
interesting shit on the way, with TRP right down into this process and enjoying the hell out of
it.  Reading it I always imagined TRP doing his research in Europe, whooping his head off at all
the crazy stuff he dug up, and doing his best to induce the same state of mind in the reader.

Whereas AtD feels more like TRP documenting this kind of journey from the outside: "in it but not
of it".  A much more reflective book, also TRP lays his cards on the table more, with riffs from
GR, COL49, VL and M&D laid out more clearly (I _love_ the connections I found in AtD - not just
the reappearance of Pig Bodine which like someone else said made me shout out loud
fist-in-the-air!).  I hope it's not his last...
So there's something else in this book that I haven't figured out yet, only a slow reading will
bring that out.  (amazing to remember how much more I got out of GR on say 10th reading, when I
knew my way around the rhythm, was more satisfied to let that laugh-out-loud set-piece 2 pages
ahead come in its own time and concentrate on the previously-neglected "in-between" bits).

meanwhile the P-list has had its usual effect, must go and chase up that topology article someone
posted a link to...  how am I supposed to earn a living here?

anyone still reading?  Hope you're not rushing it!

best


seb

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