Colson Whitehead - Zone One

[jody2.718]

Mondaugen's  Law updated. Sounds like a good investment in time. Thanks!

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"...What actually *happens* in Zone One is very slight - the
protagonist's actions could probably be condensed to 5-10 pages - but
his temporal bandwidth is huge, so everything is echoed and refracted
by the past that still lives in the present. It's not as simple as one
thing triggering a memory, but everything in the novel's present
conjures up the past as a kind of field. We're not just given a line
of dialogue, but a bunch of lines that people used to say in those
moments. Or a handful of situations that collectively describe the
broader world, rather than merely one. It's hard to describe but it's
extremely reminiscent of Pynchon's big books.

What actually *happens* in Zone One is very slight - the
protagonist's actions could probably be condensed to 5-10 pages - but
his temporal bandwidth is huge, so everything is echoed and refracted
by the past that still lives in the present. It's not as simple as one
thing triggering a memory, but everything in the novel's present
conjures up the past as a kind of field. We're not just given a line
of dialogue, but a bunch of lines that people used to say in those
moments. Or a handful of situations that collectively describe the
broader world, rather than merely one. It's hard to describe but it's
extremely reminiscent of Pynchon's big books..."

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