bangmoney.org - Reading

Day 29: page the end

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 23:28:29 -0500

Well, I finished the book. Actually I finished on Monday since I had a whole lot of spare time sitting around the Cleveland and Philly airports, not getting home. Hooray for me or something.

The story really picked up in section three. The last two hundred pages are much more interesting than the first two, which I blame on the fact that Varvara and Stepan aren't doing very much talking anymore. There's lots of plotting and scheming, plans for revolutions and murders, fires, and all sorts of chaos. I found all this much more interesting than old washed up philosophers talking about their problems with their vast estates. In the end, it turns out that all these high notions of working for the betterment of society and all amounted to nothing more than an excuse for killing some people and running off in the dead of night to print tracts in another town. Doesn't sound quite so noble that way, does it?

I guess I didn't really get much out of this book and there's a lot left that I don't understand yet. Sure, I get the point that ideas running out of control can lead to serious problems. But I don't understand what the purpose of Varvara and Stepan are at all. Why do these characters even exist? In the end, neither of them contributes very much to the story of the book. Nikolai looks like he's going to be important, but doesn't go very far either. Pytor seems to be the driving character and he's never even presented as much of a lead. I guess I just don't understand why the characters are constructed the way they are.

Also I have problems with the narrator going between omniscience and not, though I can put that aside. Other people doing the reading have already expressed their problems with this book much more eloquently than I have. On the plus side, I don't think I have quite given up on Russian literature. One book (and admittedly one the author took a completely different approach to from his usual work) isn't enough to judge an entire country by. However much as I have decided to take a break before tackling more Pynchon, I think I will have to do the same here.

So while we are waiting around to pick another (hopefully much more interesting) Death Pact book, I will finish up reading that cheap copy of War of the Worlds that I bought, and follow that up with Breakfast of Champions. I have a lot of catching up to do with the rest of the world.

Day 4: page 154

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 22:12:55 -0500

Does the dialog from this book remind anyone else of the dialog from Final Fantasy? You know: choppy, repetitive, lots of meaningless tangents.

Day 3: page 80

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 22:01:43 -0400

I didn't read yesterday, so today I'm trying to do twice the reading to catch up. I'm writing this before doing the second half of the reading to get my current thoughts out, before anything new happens.

Those idle Russian nobility sure do know how to have fun, huh? So far the main characters are a manipulative, borderline mentally abusive old woman and a washed up scholar who spends most of his time losing at cards, fainting, and crying in rapture. Like most of the other people reading this book right now, I don't really care for the characters and I am not very interested in what's going on with them. To top it all off, the style of writing is so wordy that I spend a lot of time looking over the top of the book at the wall, or asking the writer to just get on with it already. At least this makes for a quick read, unlike Gravity's Rainbow where I might spend ten minutes on just a handful of pages over and over again.

I'm a little bored with this book right now but I'm optimistic. I am hoping that we're currently being flooded with the petty troubles of life in high Russian society so that the inevitable change in politics completely broadsides us. I think there must be something dark and sinister building up behind the scenes and it's suddenly going to jump out. There's been hints of things not going quite right - like Nikolai's sudden demotion, promotion, and retirement from the military or all the weirdness going on with the new governor and his wife. At least, I hope things are going to take that sort of turn. If we get 300 pages farther in and there's still marriage scheming going on, it's going to feel like reading Jane Austen in high school all over again.

Now With More Buzzwords

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:08:04 -0400

I've set up an RSS aggregator for the new Death Pact. For those of you not in the know, an RSS feed is where you get website updates automatically sent to you from time to time. An aggregator takes a ton of those feeds and condenses them into a single one, so you only have to subscribe to one thing. So now you only have to remember the following URL:

http://dethpakt.bangmoney.org

Enjoy living in the future, with its many many buzzwords.

Death Pact 2!

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 16:31:47 -0400

Hey what do you know? I fail at blogging, just like I have the several other times I've had one of these things on my website.

Anyway there's been a recommendation for another reading death pact, this time Dostoevsky's Demons. I haven't read anything by this author before though his name and the size of most of his books already intimidates me a little bit. That's not a serious problem, though. We got through Gravity's Rainbow so I'm not terribly concerned.

Anyway, what do other people think? If this is a good choice, we could start it up in November. Are there other books we should suffer through first?

UPDATE: It's official, we're going to do this. Go to the bookstore and get your copy because we start reading on November 1. Luckily I don't have anything else to do that month, like move or travel.

Day 34 - Completion

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 21:57:31 -0400

This morning, I woke up early and finished Gravity's Rainbow. The rest of the book left me confused, amazed, and bewildered. In contrast, the ending left me feeling empty and disappointed. The story just ends, with the main character vanished (dead? insane? dissolved into the universe?) and a chapter from hundreds of pages prior retold from a different perspective to its conclusion. Other characters who seemed extremely important in the first part of the book only to disappear for 400 pages reappear, then also mysteriously vanish with no real conclusion. Then there's the story of the Schwartzcommando who are preparing to fire their rocket but are never heard from again. Characters just disappear from the story entirely. Whole subplots that seemed so important never come to a conclusion. Then, the ending itself describes events that happened chronologically before lots of other parts in the book. Slothrop (more or less the main character), from interacting with other characters, must have known that the thing he was looking for had already happened. So what is he really looking for?

I know that I am looking for some meaning out of this incredibly dense book. At its core, it can be condensed down to an extremely simple story: Slothrop is looking for the rocket 00000 and why he is connected to the substance Imipolex G. But there are dozens or even hundreds of side stories, hidden meanings, and themes. I don't think Gravity's Rainbow disguises its main themes very hard. Obviously, there are the themes of paranoia and conspiracy, the Elect vs. everyone else, notions of fate and free will, and the ever-present sexual metaphor. It'd be too easy to call the whole book a sexual metaphor when it describes all manner of fetish, and I think the fact that it's so blatant means that's not the true meaning of the book.

So what is the true meaning? I haven't figured that out. I don't think a first reading is enough to really get to the bottom of such a complex book. It may not even scratch the surface. I know that I am intrigued by some of the characters, by the appearance of structure to the story. It's easy to dismiss the rambling prose as just crap thrown in for the sake of making a thick book, but so much of it ties back in later on that there must be an underlying structure and meaning. I think everything must have been included for a reason. I'm still thinking about it... reading things other people have written to discern what's going on. There's lots of debate as to the structure having mystical connections. I don't think I am quite ready to understand yet.

For now, I am mentally exhausted. My mind is still running around and around trying to understand but the rest of me is trying to resist opening it back up and looking for more. I need a break from it. I think that even after several other books, I'll need to continue being on a break from it. I may not be ready to dig back into Gravity's Rainbow for several years. The next book I read needs to be much more straightforward. I'm not ready to tackle anything too complicated for quite some time.

I think I'm the fifth person in the Death Pact to finish.

Day 31

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Thu, 31 May 2007 08:33:42 -0400

Here it is, the beginning of day 31 and the last day of the month. I'm still way back at page 601 which is the very beginning of section four. I haven't made much progress in the last week and a half due to Sarah's visit and my rafting trip. Were it not for those things I would probably be done by now. But I'll still finish. It might just take into the first week of June.

After running around in a pig costume for a couple chapters, Slothrop is really starting to lose it. He can't concentrate on what he's doing anymore and is losing touch with what's real vs. what's fantasy. Another reader brought up the point that the chronology is screwed up. I agree. I don't understand why he's looking for the 00000 when from what all the other characters say, it seems like it's already been launched. So what's he really searching for? Perhaps the final section will make these things clear.

Day 17

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Thu, 17 May 2007 23:47:04 -0400

I'm now at page 527. Slothrop sure does keep getting into trouble somehow. It also looks like he's really starting to lose it - he keeps forgetting where he is or what he's supposed to be doing there, even when it's just been explained to him. He's never going to find the S-Gerat at this rate.

Sarah's coming into town tomorrow night. This might mean that I update this thing less frequently, though hopefully my updates will be more interesting than my slow progress in this book.

Day 15 - Winners

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Tue, 15 May 2007 20:05:08 -0400

Today is day 15 of the Gravity's Rainbow Death Pact. I'm at page 457, having quit last night after a really wonderful section involving Poekler and Ilse and then doing a little more reading today.

However, the really big news is that overnight two people announced they finished after fourteen days of reading. The first was Jared. Less than three hours later, Rebecca also got through. Surprisingly, they both seem to be alive and not entirely crazy though neither has much to say about the ending. I guess it's not going to be very remarkable. So it was very close in the end, but there can be only one winner.

I'd like to congratulate Jared for getting all the way through this book faster than the rest of us, despite having a job. I don't know what my excuse for not winning is, then. I'd also like to congratulate Rebecca for finishing so close behind. I wonder who will be third. We never decided on any sort of prize so Jared might have to settle on our admiration and respect. If we want to continue this book club idea then I guess he can also pick the next book. Hopefully it'll be something a little more approachable.

As for the rest of us, it isn't over yet. Keep reading! You still have 16 days left in the month if you want to try to finish by then. That's what I am shooting for. I'm even finding parts of this book enjoyable, though they are buried in a whole lot of text. If you don't have any interest in finishing now that someone's won, you've read a whole lot of dense text for nothing and will probably have to pick it back up again in the future.

Day 12

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Sat, 12 May 2007 22:58:23 -0400

Just a quick note on my progress, since it's been several days. I am sitting just past the middle of my copy, on page 389. It's all downhill from here. If I keep this pace up, I'm sure to finish before the end of the month though I'm positive there are lots of people ahead of me.

And now it's off to bed early so I can hike in the Sandwich Range Wilderness tomorrow.

Day 8

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Tue, 08 May 2007 23:40:21 -0400

I've finished section 2, putting me on page 282 in my copy. The story's really moving now, to the point where I wonder whether I should go back and re-read some of the past couple chapters. The last couple pages of section 2 revealed quite a bit that seems like it's going to be very important later and I must admit I kind of skimmed over it because I knew my goal for the night was in sight.

I'm also a little bit concerned about section 3. Section 2 was really pretty easy. While it wasn't a straightforward novel, the plot was pretty much right out there in the open for me to follow. Section 1 was much more rambling by comparison. I'm worried that section 3 will go back to that form, which would be tough since it's the longest section in the book. Regardless, there's nothing to do but head straight into the zone tomorrow and find out what happens.

It's still keeping up my interest, beyond just the fascination of digging through such a dense book. I think section 2 really got me to enjoy what was going on. I may just be able to finish this thing.

Day 7

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Mon, 07 May 2007 23:19:24 -0400

I lied. I was going to post an entry about my knee hurting and missing the hike I wanted to do this weekend, but it suddenly got late and I don't feel like writing all that much tonight. Instead, have another update on the reading.

I'm up to page 247, in section 2. It seems to me that section 1 was mainly there to introduce the characters. We get their motivations, their back stories, and their connections to each other. This is all hidden inside a dense and rambling narrative so it's hard to tell exactly what's what. There's also little nuggets of the plot amongst all the diversions. Section 2 is much easier reading. The plot is advancing quite rapidly and the characters are starting to figure out what's going on around them. There are fewer diversions and fewer new characters being introduced.

I still get the feeling that I am missing lots of the references and hidden meaning. That will have to be okay this time through the book since I'm reading more for completion than for understanding.

Day 4

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Fri, 04 May 2007 22:41:57 -0400

I'm now up to page 122. Yesterday's reading was really tough - I can only remember two major things from it, and everything in between those two has already left my memory. Today's reading was much easier, though the material itself was pretty disturbing. We've had some more plot points show up along with a couple more big characters. The organization of the book is interesting. Pynchon seems to keep adding on more and more seemingly unrelated stories with their own main characters, but these do eventually start to tie together in some way. It's a bit difficult to keep it all together in my head. I feel like I should be taking notes or making a big chart of characters.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't enjoying this book. Some parts of it are quite interesting and funny (like the disgusting English candy part). It's just a lot of work to follow along with the story to get to those good parts. I also know I am missing all sorts of information, but I can't imagine re-reading this any time soon.

Again, I'll have something non-GR to talk about tomorrow.

Day 2

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Thu, 03 May 2007 00:56:42 -0400

I got to the boxes on page 61 of my edition, which is right before the letters back and forth start. While I'm not having too much trouble understanding individual sections of text, I'm having a hard time piecing them together into a complete story. It feels like at least half the text is flashback or dream or someone else's memories. Which of them are relevant to the story, and which are just little half-paragraph diversions thrown in to keep my on my toes?

Anyway, certain parts of the plot are beginning to emerge. I'm enjoying it well enough but it's taking a lot of concentration to get that enjoyment out of it. Who knows what tomorrow's reading holds.

Day 1

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Tue, 01 May 2007 23:52:00 -0400

I got to the top of page 30 today, where there's a big row of boxes (which will henceforth be called Pynchon Narrative Discontinuity Boxes). It seemed like a pretty good place to stop. My mind was starting to wander those last couple pages and for some reason I would like to get something out of this book. The sentence structure (or total lack of it) is going to take some getting used to but it's not impossible. So far, I do like a lot of the humor and absurdity in the story. The giant adenoid diversion is a particular favorite. No real sign of a story yet, and only brief mentions of the person I'm assuming is the main character judging by the summaries I have read elsewere.

Tomorrow, I promise to write about something else.