Finished..... far too quickly

[David Morris]

On 12/6/06, Seb Thirlway <supa_kart_hooter at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> well hello to the Hole (sic) Krew again...
>
> Now I've rushed through it far too quickly and finished last night
>
>
> 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.

I can relate to the "too quickly," not because I'm flying through AtD
(only fitting in 1 hour or so a day, and a pretty slow reader at
that), but I'm refusing to stop and look up words or references I
don't know as that interrupts the flow/fun, and I figure it'll be
re-hashed when the group read commences.  I figure that I can get the
gist of things first time 'round without focusing on the obscure.

And you put things quite well re. GR's sway, below.  I guess we
shouldn't expect the frenzied energy busting out the seams of a book
written in the drug-drenched Vietnam-war-crescendo years at the end of
"The 60's" written by a guy 33 years younger than he is today.

And when I'd finished GR the 1st time, I knew I hadn't a clue what it
all meant, but I knew I'd really enjoyed it.  I hope the same with
AtD.

David Morris

> 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