Me: I just want to knock this out so I can get back to hacking cmake.
2022-08-11
Loving and Hating the Same Book
I bought a book in an airport not so long ago. As usual with airport news-stands the pickings were somewhat slim and I opted for something I might not have chosen from a broader menu. This is a rather long book that is claimed by the self-designated and self-concious literary establishment, though it is arguably science fiction as well.
It kept me harmlessly engaged for the rest of that rather long travel day, but after we returned home I got distracted by other reading. I hate to leave stories unfinished, however, so I've returned to it, and I'm experiencing the same mixed emotions I had on the plane.
Considered in the small, I'm blown away. Sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph the writing rolls on carrying me along wih it. Each element is put together with skill and craftmanship. Mere middling examples plucked from the text as good as the best I've ever written. Word selecion is precise, cadence is smooth, mood and ambiance permiate the language. Details dropped in like grace notes place the action in time and place or evoke he personallity of characters. Damn it's good.
But in the large, I'm somehow ... bored. Every time I turn a page I am disappointed that I haven't reached the end of the chapter. I struggle to hang on to any semblance of plot arc.1 I despair over how little of the book is behind me. I long for a couple paragraphs of clarity instead of literary stylings.
The book in question is Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. It's widely considered a masterpiece despite being a little dense. If I do manage to slog through to the end I may have some more thoughts, but for now I just note my paradoxical love and hate for the writing.
1 Well, to judge from descriptions of the work online, this is a particular offender in this regard; having more characters, more seprate threads, and just more events than is typical even for "literary" fiction.
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