Against the Day

[rich]

something tells me that the whole point of it all is the side-view, the
long-ish asides and explications on quite a range of different matters and
lightings (literally). the characters aren't important, it's the voice,
reader.
do we care so much for Webb? even the union doesnt show up for his funeral.
Or Reef's sexual exploits or the wondrous fashions that Dally or Yashmeen
inhabit? or why apparently a converted Christer Foley kills Scarsdale Vibe?
Or the long and tortuous travels through  Mexico or the Balkans or East
Asia, filled with terrain hardships and every type of liquer known to man.
It all becomes a blur and even in the latter parts of the Against the Day
section, one could detect a weariness even from the author, filled with
earnest hombres and spunky cowgirls and showtunes. So, let's make things
easier and tie things up--the Chums meet their girl Chums and Deuce Kindred
and Lake Traverse remain terrible people and not very interesting even in
post-war LA where even  the used and past-life who know who contritions of
Lew leads to a lazy rape and a lazy section.
I could go on. Erect penises and anarchist all around! snore
But to reiterate, its those side jaunts where nothing happens but the
important work is done. That, to me, is the joy of the book. I even picked
up the Vintage UK version (200 and some odd pages more of that voice
Pynchon from the original. ha!).
The funny thing is I could've sworn to a number of things that happened in
the book that I remembered, that on this re-read never happened at all. it
was as if time was the only real measure, the other axis we know and love
and touch were not. go figure.
So you can count of many fingers and dimensions the many doublings,
couplings and symmetrics as you can find and it will take many an hour to
detect them all. I'll leave that to the critics.
I still dont know what an eigenvalue is and I probably never will

rich