Now Reading

[droid]

Probably a good thing. Don't google his politics. 

[thumbass]

Googling it now, sorry!

welp youre right lol he is fucken weird

[droid]

I warned you!

Its a shame, hes a great writer. I loved 'The terror'.

[fenton]

On 6/6/2024 at 8:43 AM, dcom said:

Classic Ellis, but from his oeuvre my favourite is Glamorama. Haven't read his latest, The Shards, yet.

The shards is 10/10 I liked it as much as glamorama

[decibal cooper]

Gravity's Rainbow (1973) by Thomas Pynchon

I read this about 10 years ago and wanted to revisit. Back then, I checked out the definitive guide/annotations by Steven Weisenburger and some other literary criticism of the novel to help guide my reading. The novel is very long and complex, full of references to 1940s American popular culture, history (of America, Europe, Russia, Southern Africa, and other places across the globe), and, most daunting for me, lots of mathematics, physics, and chemistry, not only technical knowledge of these disciplines and their practice, but the history of them too. This time, though, I just wanted to approach the novel on its own terms and see what I could get out of it. Feeling as though I missed much, indeed it probably would be advisable to read the novel twice back-to-back in order to even begin getting a handle on it - it rewards rereading. The only thing I consulted before reading was a review written by Richard Poirer in 1973, which he wrote shortly after the novel was first published - a truly excellent starting place for anyone thinking about reading GR. I also would recommend reading it slowly. On some days, I set a goal to read 100 pages, and I would not advise doing this at all but to take a slower approach. The novel is famous for being tremendously difficult, arcane, and digressive - imo this is an exaggerated claim. The novel is by no means a walk in the park but is accessible I feel to any common reader of goodwill such as myself.

The creation of the V2 rocket in Germany, the first ballistic missile and precursor to intercontinental ballistic missiles that were developed during the cold war (with help from Nazi scientists and engineers that were recruited by America and the Russians at the end of WWII) - this more or less is what the book is about on the surface. The book has four sections, and the middle two concern the main character (Tyrone Slothrop) and his quest to find a mysterious rocket with a serial number of 00000 and to learn about an equally mysterious insulation material called Imipolex G which is used in this rocket. More or less a holy grail quest plot with some parallels to detective fiction. All of the books many digressions (and its over 400 characters) revolve in some way around this basic plot. The book chronicles what this rocket's creation means for humanity, both in terms of how such weaponry is a basis for the control of large population by the elites of various societies and also the metaphysical or spiritual meaning of this weapon. All of this summed up nicely toward the end of the book in this passage:

Quote

But the Rocket has to be many things, it must answer to a number of different shapes in the dreams of those who touch it--in combat, in tunnel, on paper--it must survive heresies shining, unconfoundable . . . and heretics there will be: Gnostics who have been taken in a rush of wind and fire to chambers of the Rocket-throne . . . Kabbalists who study the Rocket as Torah, letter by letter--rivets, burner cup and brass rose, its text is theirs to permute and combine into new revelations, always unfolding . . . Manichaens who see two Rockets, good and evil, who speak together in the sacred idiolalia of the Primal Twins . . . of a good Rocket to take us to the stars, an evil Rocket for the World's suicide, and the two perpetually in struggle.

Much is made in the novel of the chemist Kekule's famous dream, where he was struggling to understand the chemical structure of Benzene and he famously saw in a dream the Ouroboros, a snake eating its own tail, a symbol in alchemy that speaks to the balance of matter and spirit, or how these opposites can be united. He then knew that Benzene was in the shape of a ring. His discovery apparently set off the field of aromatic chemistry and the creation of synthetic molecules and plastic products, among other things. Pynchon links it to the German company IG Farben, which began as a manufacturer of industrial dyes but eventually became a cartel merging several chemical and pharmaceutical companies that was taken over by the Nazi party and was a key resource for their war effort and the V2 rocket program. One of the companies in the cartel manufactured Zyklon B, the poison used in various concentration camps to gas Jews on an industrial scale. The holocaust and the atomic bomb are only touched on in the novel in a tangential way, but there are two very devastating paragraphs that speak to the former directly, and it comes in the novel's centerpiece, a 35 page chapter centering on Franz Pokler, a fictional engineer who worked at one of the bases, located next to a concentration camp, where parts of the V2 were made and tested. In some of the camps, the inmates were essentially slave labor for the production of weapons and other facets of Germany's war effort.

The novel is also some of the funniest writing that I have ever read. The sheer craziness of it is also enticing. Pynchon seems to have been just this side of legally insane, and his inventiveness when it comes to plot and narrative are a sight to behold. There is a lot of drug use in this novel. I do not think that drugs are required to enjoy artworks, but I must say, there were a few times when I smoked some weed before reading (which I do not like to do, because it really slows me down when reading), but it strangely helps to bring the novel into focus somehow, both the plot and the humor.

One of the main difficulties of reading the novel is how allusive it is and how even single sentences sometimes can become an entire research project into some small, forgotten event of American history. There is a brief moment when Slothrop learns that American zoot suits, from the Zoot Suite Riots of 1943, are being sold on the black market in Zurich (I think, might have been Germany, though). Slothrop ends up securing one for himself and wearing it for a time, often to very comic effect, but there are so many moments like this, where it is like a palimpsest of references to history, science, philosophy, religion are embedded within a single sentence or paragraph, and then that knowledge is transformed into an elaborate or just downright hilarious and slapstick comic routine.

Zoot suits make a comeback at the end of the novel too, once Slothrop's character fades somewhat into the background, when a character named Pig Bodine ends up wearing a really big zoot suit to a party. In passages like this, Pynchon's trademark humor really shines:

Quote

a zoot suit of unbelievable proportions--the pointed lapels have to be reinforced with coat-hanger stays because they extend so far outboard of the rest of the suit--underneath his purple-on-purple satin shirt the natty tar is actually wearing a corset, squeezing his waist into a sylphlike 42 inches to allow for the drastic suppression of the jacket, which then falls to Bodine's knees quintuple-vented in yards of kilt-style pleats that run clear back up over his ass. The pants are belted under his armpits and pegged down to something like ten inches, so he has to use hidden zippers to get his feet through. The whole suit is blue, not suit-blue, no--really BLUE: paint-blue. It is immediately noticed everywhere it goes. At gatherings it haunts the peripheal vision, making decent small-talk impossible. It is a suit that forces you either to reflect on matters as primary as its color, or feel superficial. A subversive garment, all right.

Passages like this will always keep me coming back to Pynchon. There is a moment where the absurdity, surrealism, or hilarity kind of bites into you, you get those belly laughs that kind of startle you, it hits you in an unsuspected way, like a nice surprise, but then it just keeps going and becomes more and more outrageous and elaborate, and it often ends, like this passage, as a means to challenge authority, to strike at freedom of some kind against the powers that be. Truly inspired comic writing!

This is already a very long post, and I am getting a little tired of writing, but I did also want to mention that the themes of human sexuality and paranoia are explored too in the novel in fascinating, fresh, and exhaustive ways.

If anyone has ever wanted to try and read this novel but was unsure whether or not to give it a go, I would recommend checking out that review I linked to above and also maybe reading the famous Byron the Bulb passage, one of the best passages in the novel and a kind of microcosm of the whole thing. I will always prefer Pynchon's Mason & Dixon to Gravity's Rainbow, but GR is so great too, challenging but very fun.

Edited June 21 by decibal cooper
fixed some typos and bad phrasing

[Cyteen]

Thanks for the post and your thoughts! Gravity's Rainbow is an enigma to me... and I'm hoping one day I can read it all, while enjoying it lol. I've attempted twice, but I've stopped each time because I felt I wasnt ready or "open" to its challenge yet. There's an artist that did an illustration book filled with drawings for each page of GR, which you can purchase. I think that would make for an interesting, fun reading companion.

I did recently read Pynchon's V, his debut novel, and really enjoyed its odd wackiness, so I'm hoping I'm slowly inching toward GR. I have Mason Dixon and look forward to that one... Ive been told if you enjoyed John Barth's The Sod-Weed Factor, which I did, you'll probably like MD. I also have Against The Day as well.

Currently reading Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos. Shadow of the Torturer next I think. 

[luke viia]

27 minutes ago, Cyteen said:

Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos

How do you like it? I keep trying to find Hyperion at used stores but people always snatch them up before I get a chance. 

I finished The Count of Monte Cristo last week and absolutely loved it - I'd live in that book if I could. No spoilers, but Edmond's trajectory through those 1200 pages is fantastic. @Stock I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! 

[Cyteen]

Hyperion is amazing. Second time reading the whole thing for me. The first two are awesome and wayyyyyyy different than books 3 and 4, but the last two are amazing as well, just in a different way: future time, new plot, new characters, etc. but same universe and callbacks. Reading it all is a scifi fan must though! Hyperion is up there with Dune, star wars and star trek as far as scifi classics go. Simmons rules (his other books, different genres, are great too!)

I bought the Omnibus for Books 1 and 2, and then the omnibus for books 3 and 4 online. I

Edited June 22 by Cyteen

[Stock]

On 6/22/2024 at 4:07 AM, luke viia said:

I finished The Count of Monte Cristo last week and absolutely loved it - I'd live in that book if I could. No spoilers, but Edmond's trajectory through those 1200 pages is fantastic. @Stock I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! 

Actually I dropped it, because my first boy is born and I have some time off to dive deep into Proust's In Search of Lost Time, which I have been willing to read for years. Finished Swann's Way the other day and it is indeed very beautifully written - sometimes even too much, the writing has this dream-like quality that can be a bit tiring.

Also read Stephen King's The Stand which was on my list for a while, very nice ride and I can see why this is a fan favorite !

[decibal cooper]

On 6/27/2024 at 6:18 PM, Stock said:

I have some time off to dive deep into Proust's In Search of Lost Time, which I have been willing to read for years. Finished Swann's Way the other day and it is indeed very beautifully written - sometimes even too much, the writing has this dream-like quality that can be a bit tiring.

Nice! I read the whole thing over a year long period a while ago, very rewarding and gorgeous style. Immersing myself in it made me start writing overly long winded sentences, a very infectious style. There is high humor, as with the comedic (and ultimately very moving) treatment of Swann’s sexual jealousy, and there are lots of great characters. The best thing I remember from it, though, is how the narrator Marcel transitions from plot- and narrative-based writing into his philosophical musings on art, memory, and so many different topics.

[Crazing]

Finished white tears by hari kunzru 

Good 

[prdctvsm]

1/3 way fru :

[MadameChaos]

She's an excellent writer, but only just started it. 

[Crazing]

Both excellent. If I enjoy it then its good. 

On 6/22/2024 at 4:20 AM, Cyteen said:

Hyperion is amazing. Second time reading the whole thing for me. The first two are awesome and wayyyyyyy different than books 3 and 4, but the last two are amazing as well, just in a different way: future time, new plot, new characters, etc. but same universe and callbacks. Reading it all is a scifi fan must though! Hyperion is up there with Dune, star wars and star trek as far as scifi classics go. Simmons rules (his other books, different genres, are great too!)

I bought the Omnibus for Books 1 and 2, and then the omnibus for books 3 and 4 online. I

I read the first two. Enjoyed them. Not sure I can be arsed with two more. 

[zkom]

Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls as a Finnish translation. I love the writing style. It paints the personalities and their interactions with so much detail.

[perunamuusi]

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson (for about the 8th time).

[picklish2]

On 8/2/2024 at 12:54 PM, zkom said:

Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls as a Finnish translation. I love the writing style. It paints the personalities and their interactions with so much detail.

Loved it, a lot funnier than I thought it would be, and also made me think about voting registers, futures in economics, and all sorts of modernity that I wouldn't have imagined

[prdctvsm]

[Atop]

Flow My Tears The Policeman Said by PKD.

also

Foundation by Asimov, first Asimov and I'm liking it a lot.

[auxien]

finished Nathan Ballingrud's The Strange which was really nice to sit with for a while, bit of a Western on Mars thing, sorta sc-fi on the Weird side of things. he normally does more on the horror side, but this was his first full novel and it ended up being a really good read.

read The Key to Deceit, part 2 of a pretty standard mystery series, i've read all this author's stuff (Ashley Weaver), she's a Louisiana writer so always glad to support the locals. she does more period mystery/detective characters. i picked up a bit of taste for that sorta thing from one of my grandmothers. i'm a couple of books behind in this series but when you start them they're quick and fun to tear through.

i drop into Under Alien Skies from Philip Plait and read a chapter or two here and there, about 60% through the book right now. each bit is a little vignette fictionalized of what it would be like to experience some different planet type/etc. space phenomenon, and then he spends the rest of the chapter explaining the physics/reality behind it. highly recommended for the nerds who aren't actual smarties lol

i'm almost 70% through The Particle at the End of the Universe by Sean Carroll which i forget about immediately after i read it. idk, something about the way it's presented or something, hard to follow a track through it. if it got Mandela Effected tomorrow i'd probably forget it ever existed.

i've read a couple of random Clarkesworld stories, but well behind on that. a recent cover which is just stellar^ ...stories are always interesting, just need to be in the mood for a random sci-fi ish thing. i'll probably binge a number of the stack in Fall/Winter.

i started a random old paperback grab, The Outcasts of Heaven Belt by Joan D Vinge, but man is it a slog so far. i'd like this if it were a movie, maybe, but reading through 'hard sci-fi' ish stuff is often a bit of a trek. may abandon it eventually idk. writing isn't bad, just isn't grabbing me....lots of that era's sci-fi is prone to this...just first draft ideas pushed out to fill the shelves. may be some good stuff in there.

read a few old Machen shorts earlier this year.

Ballingrud's newest just arrived at my doorstep a couple days ago, a novella called The Crypt of the Moon Spider so that's on my next to read queue.