Cricket in ATD

[Nick Halliwell]

At the moment the possibility of working out what it is that I'm enjoying so
much looks fairly remote, unless. Well, it has just struck me that it might
be the very fact that I have no idea why I like it so much. In which case I
rather suspect I'm about to be hit over the head with a blunt paradox. Ow,
that hurts. 

 

Nick

 

-----Original Message-----
From: David Casseres [mailto:david.casseres at gmail.com] 
Sent: 10 December 2006 18:24
To: Nick Halliwell
Cc: Dave Monroe; pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: Cricket in ATD

 

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
<mailto: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
<http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,1950558,00.
html>  Rankin's article in The Guardian on 18/11/06, 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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