Red and Green Haze
I'm on page 120 of Gravity's Rainbow, and liking it immensely more this time around. Why's that? I'm less adrift this time, I know which characters are bit players who aren't coming back, and which to pay attention to. I know that some of the routines are just routines, and I'm better able to enjoy them this time for what they are, not searching for Deeper Meanings all the time. (The Disgusting English Candy Drill, for example. The hilarity!) Oh, and the things that offended or grossed me out the first time through? It's harder to receive a shock the second time around. Or maybe I'm feeling more freewheelingly perverse, or at least less uptight these days? Meh, it's probably the former. I'm shaking my head like a mother with a trouble teenager, indulgent and also totally beat, saying, "Well! Pynchon will be Pynchon!! What're you going to do?!?"
All of which frees me up some to enjoy his language, which is vigorous, and weird, and sometimes really amazing. Maybe that's one of the reasons he's hard to read, that he almost never falls back on conventions for describing things (or even for WAYS of describing things?)? Also the colors are very intense. I feel as though I'm walking through a painting, where even the shades of waste and back-lot nothingness are rich, layered on lusciously with a palette knife. Vivid, we could just say, in all kinds of ways & leave it at that.
Anyway, the book's sitting over there, open, and I'm actually looking forward to picking it up and reading a little before bed, which is way better than I'd expected to feel about it.
Also Christmas is over. I like Christmas a lot but I've become such an adult about it, it's terrible. Distracted, blase. A nuclear-family Christmas in the country. Well, it was a good rest and I've never seen such a fine-looking tree. It was rainy and spitty and an indifferent temperature all day, cold-ish but not truly cold. So basically it was how I imagine England to have been, circa nuclear families sitting in their more or less isolated spots in the country, driving away the weather with fire and card games (we played bridge, not well but we liked it) and novels and cups of tea.
Yeah it was a pretty good life there for a few days. I call total bullcrap on having to go back to work tomorrow.
All of which frees me up some to enjoy his language, which is vigorous, and weird, and sometimes really amazing. Maybe that's one of the reasons he's hard to read, that he almost never falls back on conventions for describing things (or even for WAYS of describing things?)? Also the colors are very intense. I feel as though I'm walking through a painting, where even the shades of waste and back-lot nothingness are rich, layered on lusciously with a palette knife. Vivid, we could just say, in all kinds of ways & leave it at that.
Anyway, the book's sitting over there, open, and I'm actually looking forward to picking it up and reading a little before bed, which is way better than I'd expected to feel about it.
Also Christmas is over. I like Christmas a lot but I've become such an adult about it, it's terrible. Distracted, blase. A nuclear-family Christmas in the country. Well, it was a good rest and I've never seen such a fine-looking tree. It was rainy and spitty and an indifferent temperature all day, cold-ish but not truly cold. So basically it was how I imagine England to have been, circa nuclear families sitting in their more or less isolated spots in the country, driving away the weather with fire and card games (we played bridge, not well but we liked it) and novels and cups of tea.
Yeah it was a pretty good life there for a few days. I call total bullcrap on having to go back to work tomorrow.
posted by katherine | 10:56 PM
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