Reddit to Group Read Gravity's Rainbow

Thu May 23 22:24:40 CDT 2013

I enjoy your hunger for great books.  The "bigs" of Pynchon took me a month each, but I am the type to underline and write notes in margins, reread beautiful passages, and really mull over stuff. The shorter ones took about a week each, I think I would be cool with a structured reading over a few days with the list when BE comes out. The sheer novelty of a new Pynchon novel will be enough.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Bekah" <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
Sent: ‎5/‎23/‎2013 8:57 PM
To: "craigd at control-z.com" <craigd at control-z.com>
Cc: "Bekah" <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>; "Antonin Scriabin" <kierkegaurdian at gmail.com>; "Lemuel Underwing" <luunderwing at gmail.com>; "David Morris" <fqmorris at gmail.com>; "Prashant Kumar" <siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com>; "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Subject: Re: Reddit to Group Read Gravity's Rainbow

I'm just going by Against the Day which took me 4 (full!) days,  being off work for the holidays.  Now I'm retired - (and I miss 3-day weekends). 

  If Bleeding Edge reads like AtD I can do it,  if it reads like GR you're right -  I can't and likely wouldn't want to.   I've read GR twice and I think it took me a couple weeks the first time,  a bit faster the second - maybe 8 days?  (on vacation in Portland - a good reading town). Inherent Vice took me about 3 or 4 days - normal speed - 3 or 4 hours a day probably,  maybe a bit more. 

Some narratives are just far more dense and need more time.  And I'm not talking about any kind of careful reading - I'm talking about getting the main characters straight,  plot comprehension, the rhythms of the narrative and any really overt themes.   This helps for a second reading which,  unless it's a dud,  I know I will do  -  I don't think I can understand a really good book with one reading - I kind of need the overview or big picture before I get into the details and how they fit. 

But I just thought of this - there are some books I just feed on - like I want to gobble them in and chew on them and digest them all in one swoop (omg).  This is not so much fast as it is seriously intense.  Blood Meridian was like that,  so was Foucault's Pendulum.   Those books just take what they take - but I go at them for several hours at a stretch,  break, and then back into them - AtD was a lot like that *for me.*    The first page sample of Bleeding Edge seemed about normal - I might get intense about it but I might not  - just have to see how it goes.   I can bet you that I finish,  and with fair comprehension,  within 4 or 5 days.  (But I'll also bet I'll want to read it again.) 

Bekah 

On May 23, 2013, at 4:36 PM, "Duckett, Craig" <craigd at control-z.com> wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> I've read Gravity's Rainbow TWICE in the past, and I really don't 
> know how anyone could possibly read it in three days. It just 
> doesn't read/flow like "traditional" literature, imho. Three 
> weeks, maybe, and that's pushing it, but certainly not in three 
> days.
> 
> Best!
> 
> Craig
> 
> 
> On Thu May 23 11:31:32 CDT 2013, Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> 
> wrote:
> 
>> And I think I'll do a really quick read of the whole thing  (3 
>> days?)  to get the spoilers out of the way for myself but be very 
>> careful not to post big spoilers for a week or so - or until I 
>> see other folks coming up for air.  (heh)   Bekah
>> 
>> On May 23, 2013, at 9:03 AM, Antonin Scriabin 
>> <kierkegaurdian at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> I think I am going to just be careful which P-list threads I 
>>> open until I finish, to avoid spoilers.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 12:02 PM, Bekah 
>>> <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>> Yup  -  I read Against the Day the Thanksgiving weekend it came 
>>> out,  but the "official" group read was a couple months later 
>>> (and I reread it!)  I think lots of folks did that or close.
>>> 
>>> The only problem I see is the possibility of spoilers - the book 
>>> is set for nearly 500 pages - this needs a couple days for some 
>>> readers,  weeks for others.   I'd say an informal survey read 
>>> the remaining month of September (with spoilers be damned - 
>>> pretty much what you said, Antonin) and a ore careful reading 
>>> going from  October through December (approx.  25 pages per week 
>>> -  but who knows where that would break? bleeding all over the 
>>> place.)   This is what would likely happen anyway - (heh).
>>> 
>>> Bekah
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On May 23, 2013, at 7:56 AM, Antonin Scriabin 
>>> <kierkegaurdian at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> I think we might have success with a Bleeding Edge group read 
>>> since it will be current and new.  That said, I think the entire 
>>> P-list will morph into a giant, 37-thread group read overnight 
>>> anyways, which suffices!
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 11:39 PM, Lemuel Underwing 
>>> <luunderwing at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Let's just pretend like Reddit never happened. That's what I'm 
>>> doing. It's been such a time-sink for me the past year these 
>>> last three months being Reddit-Free have been Bliss. Like that 
>>> one fellow said "Hell is other people".
>>>> 
>>>> The List is enough for me, thanks.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 4:03 PM, David Morris 
>>> <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> P-list group reads have been very fruitful, however erratic 
>>> and stumbling. The few that dedicate themselves to participating 
>>> make it rewarding. They always have limped to finish, loosing 
>>> most participants along the way.  But we've always taken them at 
>>> a snails pace, GR takes about a year @ P-list speed.  So it's no 
>>> wonder they finish weak.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Wednesday, May 22, 2013, Bekah wrote:
>>>> How sad for you to have missed some excellent group reads here 
>>> and other places.
>>>> 
>>>> Bekah
>>>> 
>>>> On May 21, 2013, at 6:01 PM, Prashant Kumar 
>>> <siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> I don't see the point of this. General tone seems to view 
>>> G'sR as a badge, a pin, a commendation and a ticket to smugness 
>>> for looking at words on a page...now in a group! Every group 
>>> read I've been part of has either disintegrated or been rather 
>>> more than a little pointless, usually eventually, sometimes at 
>>> the outset. I'm betting the latter, here.
>>>>> 
>>>>> P.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 22 May 2013 02:08, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Good one, Mark.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 11:29 AM, Markekohut 
>>> <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>> LIKE....
>>>>> a progressive unknotting into and out of....
>>>>> 
>>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>>> 
>>>>> On May 21, 2013, at 11:20 AM, "Monte Davis" 
>>> <montedavis at verizon.net> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Do you mean "what could go wrong that the P-list hasn't 
>>> exemplified for
>>>>>> twenty years"..?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Sure, that sounds demanding, but creativity knows no 
>>> limits.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org 
>>> [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
>>>>>> Of Joe Allonby
>>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2013 10:44 AM
>>>>>> To: Mark Woollams
>>>>>> Cc: pynchon -l
>>>>>> Subject: Re: Reddit to Group Read Gravity's Rainbow
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> What could go wrong?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 9:33 AM, Mark Woollams 
>>> <woollams812 at yahoo.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>> http://www.reddit.com/r/bookclub/comments/1eqi9f/the_next_big_read_will_be_g
>>>>>> ravitys_rainbow_by/
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> --
>>>>> www.innergroovemusic.com
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20130523/b5e79088/attachment.html>