ATDTDA (3) Dynamitic mania, 80-86

[bekah]

At 5:03 PM +0200 2/28/07, Ya Sam wrote:
>>It's not engagement with any of the characters, however,  ...
>
>My take on the 'engagement' with the characters in AtD. Sounds 
>pretty banal, but that's what I feel. I do not sympathise much with 
>a lot of the characters, especially episodical ones, in AtD. E. g., 
>I don't give a damn about Chevrolette McAdoo or Toadflax. But I 
>really felt sorry for Webb, when he was murdered and the retrieval 
>of his body, no matter how 'postmodern' the whole Jeshimon sequence 
>was, proved a heart-rending episode for me. So, I guess, with me it 
>would depend on the character, hell, I even cringed when major Marvy 
>was being castrated in GR.


I found the characters to be far more compelling and engaging on my 
second read.  Perhaps I knew who was going to be "important" in the 
book (Webb family,  Vibe family,  Lew,  and many others) and which to 
more or less ignore (Chevrolette).   In my first reading the 
complexity of everything worked to keep me out;   in the second 
reading it works to draw me in,  possibly because I know where it's 
going?    This has happened with other books, too but not always.   I 
loved  M&D and The Crying of Lot 49 from the first words.   I had to 
read Vineland twice to get IN to it. GR has had a first disastrous 
reading and,  in time,  will get a second.   AtD encourages me there.

Bekah