does AtD rock?

[mikebailey]

On Mon, 9 Jul 2007, David Morris wrote:

> OK.  GR is more narritively concise.  Slothrop (and the Rocket) is
> central.  But what about the energy?  I know we all know GR rocks and
> ATD doesn't (as) much.
>
> Even the latest po-mo journal admits GR is a hard act to follow.
>
> I know.  We're supposed to let history judge.
>
> I haven't that time.
>

what you say may well be true: GR may rock harder than AtD.
It's a Heraclitean issue in a way.  I'm not intimating that
any of us rocked harder in 1973 than we do now -- but there's
a lot more discouraging history that we have lived through,
and through which a novel must shine to win our devoted attention.

I'm going to court dismissal from the P-list by suggesting
that back then GR wasn't even my favorite book.  Parts of it
were over my head - ah, heck, a lot of it was.  I read it
because I'd liked V., and that was mostly because of the Profane
parts which reminded me of Jack Kerouac, who really was my favorite
back then.

over ensuing years, reread GR (and V.) during some slack time,
took a bunch of lit classes too, had some life experience,
gradually grew to understand how great it was

hope there's time to grow into AtD; I'll give it the same
chance as any book.  As to energy - I'm thinking that GR
is couched in such energetic terms to draw people's attention
to themes that he will continue to develop; that the rhetorical
devices are unsubtle because he is saying something new;
that to continue in those tones once he's drawn the attention
of those capable of understanding might draw the unfavorable
attentions of those among Them who might be able to triangulate
the location of the Counterforce and to figure out where to aim
the beam from the anti-Stone...so he's couched his message
within a long novel using the rhetorical devices common to
that medium, but shaped to his own end
(like a well-broken-in bicycle seat) <groan>