Cricket in ATD

[David Casseres]

Welcome!  You already look like a useful contributor to this List.

And I can't wait until, later on, you go and read Gravity's Rainbow, and
complain bitterly that it doesn't have whatever you eventually loved most
about Against the Day.

On 12/10/06, Nick Halliwell <nick.halliwell at btclick.com> wrote:
>
>  Hi Dave (and thanks also to everyone who responded both on and off-list),
>
>
>
> Thanks for your e-mail and your kind words of welcome. I'm glad a number
> of people seem to have found this interesting or at least illuminating. I
> considered a spoiler alert but I was careful to do no more than mention the
> title "the Doosra" with nothing about the context. But I'm new here and if I
> did breach etiquette in any way then I apologise most profusely – I suspect
> it'll take me at least one lifetime to catch up. I wasn't aware that there
> was a group read – I'd be grateful if someone could point me to information
> on this and then I'll certainly watch out at the appropriate time and if
> there's any help I can offer I'll be only too pleased to do so.
>
>
>
> I've already signed up to the Wiki you mention and am awaiting
> confirmation. I'll certainly add info on any subjects I can. I've already
> found many of the articles there very useful as I'll admit that, during my
> time at school at least, the British educational system was strangely silent
> on matters such as labour relations and anarchism in the pre-WWI US mining
> industry. I expect Mr Blair has rectified this by now.
>
>
>
> I suppose I probably do have a different perspective from the more
> seasoned readers amongst you so be gentle with me, won't you? Am I the only
> person who feels that *ATD* simply LOOKS accessible in purely physical
> terms? Somehow, well, "airy" is the word that comes to my mind, as though
> the reader is free to take it however s/he may choose. I'd been building up
> to reading one of Pynchon's novels for a while, the balance was tipped by a
> number of things: the Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin's article in *The
> Guardian* on 18/11/06<http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,1950558,00.html>,
> i.e. a piece by a non-highbrow author (I mean that as a compliment!)
> suggesting that there was much FUN to be had – and he was dead right about
> that - a couple of reviews in the UK press generally opining that this was
> fine stuff but probably not as "great" as the other novels (a bit of
> critical sniffiness is often a good sign, isn't it?) and then I came across
> the book itself in a shop and it spoke to me. Oh and I'd finished a book the
> previous evening so I needed to start a new one and there it was.
>
>
>
> I'm certainly not finding it at all inaccessible. I suspect that it'd
> offer different points of entry for different people. In my own case clearly
> there's the cricket, also the wonderfully Dickensian way with character
> names and the liberties (not to mention equalities and fraternities) taken
> with certain European languages. I get my own daily bread as a translator so
> this appeals to me. On the other hand much of the scientific stuff goes over
> (or takes other tangential routes around) my head and there I have to ask
> for help – the Pynchon Wiki is invaluable in that respect. I can't say
> whether it's more accessible than any of the others because I've not read
> them - yet. All I can say is that it's proved a wonderful place to start for
> me personally.
>
>
>
> Anyway, as soon as my account on the Wiki is confirmed I'll certainly see
> about adding what information I can. Once again, thanks to everyone who
> wrote to welcome me to this world.
>
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