Spoiler's Reading IV pp 1-50

[Robin Landseadel]

On Aug 14, 2009, at 8:35 PM, alice wellintown wrote:

> OK , her we go, that is,  if  you got the balls; this novel is crap.

How unladylike, how troll-ish, how puerile.

On Aug 14, 2009, at 8:52 PM, John Bailey wrote:

> Who is Brigadier Pudding is this equation?

"Yummy, yummy, yummy, I've got love in my tummy . . ."

On Aug 15, 2009, at 1:45 AM, Tore Rye Andersen wrote:
>
> Dave:
>
>> [...] maybe bust up the longer chapters into two hosting stints [...]
>
> How about lumping the shorter chapters into one hosting stint instead?
> Chapters 3-5 and 19-21, for instance. IV is lighter than Pynchon's  
> usual
> fare, so perhaps the group read should be kept relatively short. We  
> might
> keep up a better momentum that way.

Just so long as I get chapter four, one way or another, I'll be happy.  
Yes, it's only five pages long—you make an excellent point how a group  
reading of this book would be better served by grouping chapters and  
moving rather quickly through this novel.

On Aug 15, 2009, at 2:38 AM, Carvill John wrote:
> I don't think I would take a hosting slot. The last couple of Group  
> Reads I participated in here were not edifying experiences. I tried  
> to get a group read of GR going a few years back, and the results  
> could not have been worse unless, I dunno, an actual fatality had  
> occurred. I hosted a segment of the ATDTDA (aka 'Touching the Dog's  
> Arse'), and was lucky enough to get one of the best and most  
> obviously significant passages of teh book to annotate, and I put  
> quite a lot of work into my posts, and it triggered virtually no  
> discussion at all, and I ended up feeling it had been a total waste  
> of time. Which it had.

Some of us feel as if we have to do these things. While I don't think  
the group read of Against the Day was 'a total waste of time' there  
were times when a lot of crickets could be heard, a lot of folks  
bailing, a lot of wheels spinning. What can I say? This stuff  
obviously isn't for everyone. 'alice wellintown' obviously could have  
made useful contributions, but it's hard to tell from the passive  
aggressive quality of 'her' recent posts exactly what this poster is  
really up to.

I do not think Inherent Vice is crap. I do think that most of Inherent  
Vice is drawn from memory instead of research and that the author's  
memories are obviously [deliberately] warped. I also think that  
Inherent Vice owes a great deal to Raymond Chandler. Pynchon could not  
have found a more preterite form to express his thoughts than this  
psychedelic noir.