Against The Day

[Henry Winkler]

You are crazy Laura. The whole book is pretentious and gratuitous.

On 6/21/07, kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> I'm not happy with all the choices TRP made in this book, and, no, it
> didn't recreate the mind-blowing experience that reading GR provided.  But
> the two or so weeks I spent crashing through my first reading, and the
> current, year-plus, contemplative rate of reading have been enriching.  At
> his best (and even at his worst) TRP is thought-provoking and
> mind-expanding.  Throughout, there are incredible bursts of brilliant prose,
> and however obscure he gets, there's not a pretentious or gratuitously
> depressing moment in the book, faults too often encountered in contemporary
> lit.
>
> Laura
>
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: "grladams at teleport.com" <grladams at teleport.com>
> >Sent: Jun 21, 2007 11:17 AM
> >To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> >Subject: Re: Against The Day
> >
> >Hello,
> >Even though overall I like ATD, there are ways in which TRP's style is
> very
> >heavy and grates. I went through and started to count but then the number
> >was too high to matter -- One certain phase-- usually positioned at the
> end
> >of a description "almost as if." Ok so things can't just "be" they have
> to
> >be "almost." And the double refraction reference keeps coming up a lot,
> and
> >it's interesting to consider all the possibilities, like we did in a
> thread
> >a couple four weeks ago- but it has become a hobby horse, same with
> >singling up all the lines, couple three, the boffo names (I liked Lube
> >Carnal though..). I change my internal reading accent into a silly
> English
> >accent so that helps. I think that his hobby horses that he likes to ride
> >on seem tired, and they get in the way of the flow of a good read.
> >
> >Somewhere between the La Blanca and the Mescaline, Frank(?i think) and
> his
> >new anarchist friends are out on the range and someone's thinking back to
> >how sweet it would be to have an obscure brand name. Beer, they don't
> just
> >think of beer. The pure flow of reading kinks for a moment. There are a
> >million better examples of obscure references, even worse flow stoppers
> but
> >that one is handy.. I like it when there could be two meanings, such as
> the
> >chemistry reference on pp. 371-2 Thanks for the Grundy explanation I have
> >visited a place called Grundy so that reference always distracted me too.
> >So we are a very few number of readers that have made it to the end. And
> >even fewer will have looked up and discussed all the references. (is that
> >what waste means maybe?)
> >
> >So it's not reading a novel really-- but it's a novel experience. I've
> >participated in this experience so that a)I can play with my mind, the
> >sfumato thing b)there's familiar faces in my email each day c)pynchon's
> >philosophies have melded into mine so I hear, underneath all the
> >complicated writing, things that mean something personally to me. And the
> >way when we start out on a project or trip, there are yes, infinite
> >possibilities, which narrow down to the slip or quay where it all stops.
> I
> >love that metaphor, I'm wondering if we all wish like I do that we could
> >have a new departure, get out of the situation mankind has found itself
> in?
> >
> >When I'm about 60 years old, if all goes like it has, there will be 14
> >billion people on this earth. Are we arriving or can we depart again?
> Isn't
> >that what the fantasy of time travel is? Once some things get discovered,
> >we miss they way it was when we could get all flamed out wondering about
> >something. It sucked, for me, for example, when they dragged a colossal
> >squid out of the water to examine it. Bits of ludditisms, the electric
> >light replacing the gas light, the history that would lie underneath
> >shiftings of utilities and monopolies, the stuggle between workers and
> the
> >capitalist rulers-- but even that reaches full circle.
> >
> >I can see why for example, the Sabbath is holy, and it's revolutionary to
> >keep it that way, not that Pynchon says so, but because we have got to
> >remember the common denominators that keep us all human. Stripped of
> >technology, down to who we are, how we can get along. The people who can
> >read this novel are probably directly or indirectly inheritors of the
> >wealth that has allowed us to go to graduate school, use computers and
> >technology all day long especially with the list, so it is important for
> us
> >to read this, it's like a lesson. And when you are stuck on a train for 2
> >hours a day, ATD is able to be relished, a gift indeed,
> >
> >Jill
> >
> >--------------------------------------------------------------------
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> >
> >
> >
>
>
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