Against the Day

[rich]

But AtD doesnt seem that different from the vision of history as depicted
in V/GR and M&D--I see it as one big continuum from the slave/mercantile
fetishes of the 18th century to the early years of the power of the nation
state to its logical end game in nuclear annihilation and/or control, BE
being a more easily digested post-script.
For me, Pynchon's voice is what keeps me reading him.

rich

On Wed, Aug 28, 2019 at 7:18 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> It is just as much the great overarching vision of history and that
> perspective on the characters
> that makes this a great novel.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 26, 2019 at 12:08 PM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>