All aboard

[rich]

The scenes set in Stalingrad are some of the most powerful of the novel.

The Kindly Ones is my favorite novel of 2009. its not pleasant by any
means but it struck me as a fine depiction of the times, despite alot
of surrealistic elements and weird sex--think the critics got so
frazzled about the last two, they missed out on some fine historical
fiction writing and psychological insights.

rich



On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 1:08 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net> wrote:
> Mark Kohut sez:
>
>>When I was reading this book, I was self-convinced Littell had internalized
> (out of deep respect) Pynchon's work or at least GR.
>
> I thought at first you might be overdoing it, but now that I've read on to
> Aue's hallucinations -- the dirigible across the Volga, the mad scientist's
> cone-shaped earth and plan to go over the Edge -- I think he may have
> stirred in AtD as well.
>
> --- On Fri, 12/4/09, Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> From: Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net>
>> Subject: All aboard
>> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>> Date: Friday, December 4, 2009, 6:22 AM
>> We've been here before, Evacuating,
>> yo-yoing, remodeling Rocky Mountain
>> trestles. But here's a _Sicherheitsdienst_ officer just
>> starting to feel at
>> home in 1942:
>>
>> "My first night in Stalingrad, I still remember, I had
>> another metro dream.
>> It was a station with many levels, but they communicated
>> with each other, a
>> huge labyrinth of steel beams, footbridges, steep metal
>> ladders, spiral
>> staircases. The trains arrived at the platforms and left
>> them in a deafening
>> racket. I didn't have a ticket and was terrified of being
>> checked by the
>> station police. I went down a few levels and slipped into a
>> train that was
>> leaving the station and then dive-bombed almost vertically
>> on its tracks;
>> below, it slowed down, reversed its direction and, passing
>> by the platform
>> again without stopping, plunged in the other direction,
>> into a vast abyss of
>> light and harsh noise."
>>
>> _The Kindly Ones_, Jonathan Littell, tr. Charlotte Mandell
>>
>>
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>>
>>
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