[current] currently reading and re-reading
Submitted by Nick Vane on Fri, 10/18/2002 - 05:30
Tags:
- "V.", Thomas Pynchon
- "Amusing Ourselves to Death", Neil Postman
Author Comments:
well, I'm gonna give the reclusive Mr. Pynchon another shot, and this one seems more promising. I got up to p. 79 when Sweet Eugene's House of Java put on Semisonic's "Closing Time" really really loud. I got nostalgic, the feeling of being unwanted, and out of there. But it's better. I'm not trying to figure every little thing out as I'm reading it, and it's very rewarding as is.
Fast Food Nation just convinced me not to eat at fast food places. I still eat out a lot, just at better restaurants ;) (and I eat essentially no ground beef anywhere now)
hee. good point. if the burger isn't wrapped in paper, you're probably not playing Russian roulette.
I used to work at Chick-fil-A, and we dealt exclusively in whole chicken, not processed parts. Plus, our cleanliness was outstanding. But yeah.
I'm not going to say I completely stay away from fast food. But it'd be nice if I would.
Nick, you would like my friend, Jodi. Her weblog is called i will dare. Check it out sometime.
cool. thanks.
I haven't read V but have heard it's one of the easier ones to get through. You might want to try The Crying of Lot 49 though since it's both short and less confusing than most of his stuff.
interesting... The Crying was actually the first Pynchon work I read, followed by the short story "Entropy". astute of you to make that suggestion, I think...
I started Gravity's Rainbow, didn't get far. Read The Crying... then later went back to GR and actually finished it.
I picked up an unread copy of "V." at a used bookstore recently. What heathen would sell an unread copy of Pynchon to a used bookstore?
Funny, I get a kick out of people who find Gravity's Rainbow hard. I found myself struggling madly with "Mason & Dixon", and that's only because he decided to use 18th prose and grammar. Sick bastard!
speak for yrself. trying to ID who's important, what's symbolic, what means what ad infinitum got me bogged down in Gravity's Rainbow right quick.
My expectations were so high that I didn't want to miss out on a single thing the book had to offer, at the expense of enjoying it. So I got frustrated and turned the book back t' the library. Silly rabbit.
unfortuneatly i've only Gravity's Rainbow and no other Pynchon works (yet) but i was able to get this from it... you really can't read it for characters and symbolism in the first read. you need to read it as a whole to get the gist of the book in all its eccentricities. then go back and try to keep tabs on everything. a prof. who had been teaching the book for close to 20 years still had difficulty keeping everything in the book straight...so its not just you....so pull it back down and try...its definately got some great laughs and sick moments but strangely worth the effort. happy reading