the future of fiction?

[Daniel Harper]

On Saturday 21 April 2007 06:54, you wrote:
> Now I feel better about not being able to get past page 12 of Special
> Topics.
>
>
>
> Is her physics that dense and complicated? Wha?! More complicated than
> quantum physics?!!!
>

In the first hundred pages or so, there is no physics at all. It reads like a 
high school English paper written by a bright but unworldly 18-year old -- 
which the character is supposed to be (Lee, 1960). She also includes 
footnotes (Asimov, 1972) and references in-text (Joyce, 1916) that interrupt 
the flow of the writing to an enormous degree.

Unlike my clumsy example above (Rand, 1943), it's a masterful parody of the 
style, and makes perfect sense in context, but it's very difficult to read, 
and doesn't have the kind of rewards that Pynchon gives out like candy. Pessl 
is a good writer who's written a book that I simply couldn't get into, but I 
may end up giving her another try here in a few weeks.

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-- 
No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.
--Daniel Harper
countermonkey.blogspot.com