On 2nd read of AtD

[Mark Kohut]

Dear Ya Sam,
   
  Nice words....I too want to have it read to me.....
   
  do you think it is possible, does anyone?, that TRP ending up merging two works he was working on into the huge AtD?....that famous 4th work-in-progress he wrote about long ago?
   
  One, the Western revenge "tragedy"?  
  Second, the Chums and Europe/Asia?
   
  Sorta.
   
  MK

Ya Sam <takoitov at hotmail.com> wrote:
  I have just finished my second reading of AtD accompanied by Dick Hill's 
many-voiced performance, and I thought I would share some general 
impressions.

1. As you might remember I expressed my disappointment with the book when I 
had read it for the first time. To my relief, it has considerably diminished 
the 2nd time through. At least for me an ideal pace for AtD turned out to be 
30-50 pages a day. When it's 100-150 the repetetive stylistic patterns tend 
to be a bit jarring and the meaty content too much to digest. With this book 
ideas proved to be more important for Pynchon than style and whereas I 
sorely miss the pyrotechnics of GR, now I think that maybe the less 
convoluted form chosen by Pynchon for his last novel is the best receptacle 
for the impestuous and baroque content he regales us with.
2. It could have been easily edited to 900 pages without any loss as to the 
content. The prose definitely would have been more muscular. The Western 
part, which is the least successful for me, sometimes seems to be dragging 
on forever.
3. I am still irritated with the way characters keep bumping one into 
another, although it has been obviously done on purpose. I think Tore (where 
are you, mate?) posted about this phenomenon some time ago.
4. The Chums of Chance strand is a tour de force. I came to absolutely love 
it during my second reading.
5. I'll read it for a 3d and 4th and 5th time.

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