IV - Please Don't Rush To Judgement

[Carvill, John]

Yikes!

> DMorris:
> God! Cliches piled over the top!
> Maybe it builds into something bigger than this pile.

> Kai:
> Maybe not. All three samples given so far were lame.
>
> It's like in AtD, the long sentences they just don't scan anymore,
they simply fall off
> the table ...
> Did Pynchon lose his rhythm? And if "something bigger" than clusters
of cliches -- what? A whale?

Don't want to start another argument, but... This is kinda irksome
stuff, here, guys. There's nothing wrong with any of the excerpts
which've been circulated so far. Except, of course, that they're not
from GR. I really like the 'fro pick paragraph, and the one with the
jittering paisley VW buses seems to scan just fine to me. It has that
Pynchon rhythm, a poetic feel to it, and it imparts the appropriate
sense of atmosphere. And that's just that one paragraph, you have to
consider it as a part of the whole, which we will only be able to start
doing on our second read of the book, at the earliest. 

Furthermore, it (arguably) counts as one of those great Pynchon
'begginning of a journey' riffs (a la GR's opening evacuation, or Zoyd's
trip up to the Log Jam) and, if you want to lean down really heavily on
the Pynchon symbolism, it ends with that ominous 'up North'...

Kai, I know you acknowledged zippos, matchsticks, etc. But I think it's
unfair (on ourselves as readers) to judge IV on the evidence of these
tiny wee snippets.

I'll come clean now and admit that I was lucky enough to, er, acquire an
advacne copy of the book, and I don't want to give out any spoilers
(though anyone who wants to can quiz me off-list) so I will say no more,
except to note that I absolutely loved it.

Cheers
JC