Time to get rolling, it seems.
InfiniteZombies is rolling out a group read of A Gravity’s Rainbow next month. I have a couple of articles I want to post after I find a journal home for them. And I need a space to interact with some fiction, some literary criticism, and some pop cultural analysis.
So here we are, Internet.
Let’s begin, shall we?
Looks like you’re all set up to blog over here, but I’ll extend the invitation anyway — I’d gladly have you join me in posting at IZ if the urge strikes you (but no hard feelings if you’re not inclined).
Hi, Daryl! I don’t have to blog the TGR read here. If it makes sense to write a post and put it on Zombies with just a link here that’s fine with me. I’m not a Pynchon specialist so I don’t have anything at stake in having the posts here. I just needed some space from the parenting blog in which to mull things and to which to point professional contacts.
Let me know what works for you. If you want some posts for IZ, I’d be honored. If you want small potatoes over here driving readers to IZ, that’s easy. Ponder and get back to me.
Well, so my dilemma is that I’m not only not a Pynchon specialist, but I’m really essentially a dilettante who’s probably bitten off more than he can chew. I’ve (as of today, having wrapped up Inherent Vice) read all of Pynchon’s novels save M&D (which I stopped maybe 150 pages in years ago for no good reason), and the awful truth is that I kind of hate his stuff. But I wanted to try to get back into the group read thing, and there was some interest when I threatened to do GR November a year ago. And to the detriment of the project, I’m so far the only person who’s committed to blog the thing, so it’ll be sort of like the blind guy who sort of doesn’t even want to see leading the blind. (Don’t get me wrong — I do want to reread the book; I just feel like I’m probably going to hate almost every minute of it, which really is probably appropriate given some of what the book’s about. Pynchon is my Blicero.)
I figure that even if you’re not a Pynchon specialist, well, you’re at least a literature specialist, where I’m just this guy with a B.A. who fakes his way through these blogging projects. In other words, you’d definitely class up the joint and raise the level of discourse. So if you’d be willing to post to IZ when you have time (which I know is a commodity — I follow your parenting blog), I’d be prostrate with gratitude. But I’d understand if you did want to keep your stuff over here. I’d have nothing at all against cross-posting, if that worked out better for you.
Oh, Daryl, this is going to be awesome. Because I can’t stand Pynchon. Or Delillo. Wallace is the first postmodernist I enjoyed, and it all makes sense now that his work is actually post-postmodernist.
So I need to read AGR. You’ve promised the world you would. So we have to. (I stopped M&D, too, not even as far as you made it. And I had to force myself at metaphoric gunpoint both times I read The Crying of Lot 49 to not throw that important and revered piece of crap out the window.)
I figure A Gravity’s Rainbow is going to be like The Great Gatsby for me. I know why it’s important, I know why I must read and understand. But I hate Gatsby, and I plan to hate GR.
So with that joyous rallying cry, let’s blog why the novel does or doesn’t work, why postmodernism is unbearable, and we all seek solace and humanity in Infinite Jest.
And on the letters behind one’s name stuff: I’ve known idiots with degrees and brilliant humans with none. Presence or lack of a degree doesn’t make your thoughts more or less valuable. The ability to have an articulate conversation is the point.
So let’s at least try.
Maybe I’ll cross post and maybe I’ll just post at IZ. We’ll discuss that as we get closer?
Huzzah, the Pynchon hate-fest is on! I’m so excited you’ll be joining me. Just today, I heard back that Jeff Anderson (who blogged at IZ for several books, perhaps most memorably and frustratedly for 2666) is up for blogging as well, so we’re three, at least. I have at least one fun trick/surprise thing up my sleeve. This is going to be fun. Sweet painful fun.
I enjoy reading Jeff, so that seals the damned deal. Yuck. And yay! It’ll be fun, except when it’s not.
Most of the 2666 read was me really pregnant, scurrying to schedule posts well in advance just in case I delivered mid-book. I kept reading with a newborn but eventually decided there was no reason to keep reading a book I just didn’t like. Didn’t hate it. Was angry with it, though, so I am still about 50 pages from the end and don’t care if I ever finish. Sorry, Bucher.
So let’s talk turkey soon. Is this a blog what moves you or assign certain sections deal-io? I’m good with flexible and even better with schedules.
Huzzah!
We’ve tended to be pretty flexible, with bloggers often just falling off the radar when they lost interest or got busy (for IJ, I was going to just duck in here and there and wound up being almost the only blogger for the whole dang book). I hadn’t planned on anything like assignments, though I suppose I could make them if that’s helpful. I’ve generally tried to do a minimum of a post per week on whatever topic moved me (which has sometimes just been “I have no single significant thesis to assert, so I’ll just catalogue a few things that interested me”). I sort of liked what Bucher did for 2666, with different people tracking different things, but it’s not a task I’m sure I’m up to or that I’d saddle anybody with. If there’s something you think’d be challenging or fun, run with it; if you want to go free-form and just write what occurs to you on a given day, that’s fine too (and is pretty much what I figure I’ll do). If a schedule helps, I guess you could just say “I’ll write on Wednesdays” (or the day of your choice) and try to stick to it, but it’s not as if I’m going to knit my brows if you don’t produce.
Sounds perfect. I’ll write something each week, I’ll schedule it to post on whatever day we don’t have something coming.
Easy. Awesome. Looking forward to it.
I cannot write literary criticism or even to talk about it or to fake it. But I am here to offer moral support and listen to you smart people here.
Absence, you will totally fit in here. I’ve seen you quote Edward Said, I’ve watched you eviscerate a criticism with feminist erudition, and I’ve read some of your well written pop cultural critiques. You’ll fit in just fine.
Thanks for stopping by! The moral support means a lot.