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.
Don't look for a plot resolution, and don't feel compelled to get to the bottom of it; anymore than you'd look for the point of the shapes in a lava lamp or finish a chapter of the bible (or a Raymond Chandler novel.) I had the very same reaction when I started it at PU in 74. Later that year, In Pasadena, I was told to learn the language first. I read the short/jejune "Crying of lot 49" by the author, and loved it (he had not grown into this style, so it was more "conventional"); then, "V", and loved it more; then went back to Gravity's Rainbow.
ReplyDeleteI then got it. I have been re-reading chunks of it over the decades, channel-flipping through its chapters, its Proverbs for Paranoids, its characters, with far more success than the Gideon's Bible (if they still carry them in hotels...). Think of it as listening to just a movement of a symphony; or two. Aren't your thoughts and musings during the day structured like that? Don't your ideas click like that at the damnedest times?
Al this to point our that I, myself, started out with irritation, only to evolve in admiration and gratitude for it. Pynchon's "Inherent Vice" is more linear, and even the movie based on it is nice.
Thanks for your thoughts and advice.
DeleteI did understand that the meandering structure of the narrative fragments as a window into the distractable and unfocused nature of the way people process their life. I even approve of the effort insofar as it supports inward reflection and for deconstructing the conventions of narrative. But is a shorter format, please.
Perhaps I will try some of his earlier efforts, because I'm not able to keep at this right now.