The pot of gold’s at the end of some other rainbow
Since just before the holidays I’ve been trying to trudge my way through the tome Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. It’s one of those books that has sat on my reading list since college, mocking me with its big brainy brawn as I devour my Oprah’s Book Club picks.
I don’t put books down without finishing them very often, but am trying to learn how to say enough is enough in all areas of my life. I’m about 250 pages into the thicket—776 pages of fiction with over 400 characters—and I realize that I haven’t formed an attachment to one single soul. The language, yes. Pynchon’s use of the English language has made synapses explode in wonder at least a thousand times. But I haven’t fallen in love with one person in the book. That’s an important part of reading for me, feeling tangled up in someone else’s story and spirit. This novel is like wading through Purgatory, hundreds of lost souls bumping into one another but moving on so quickly that I forget about them in a page or two.
So yes, enough is enough. I’m taking it back to the library, paying my $11.40 late fees because I ran out of renewals and stubbornly refused to give up. I have to give up. The idea of reading another 526 pages of this massive web of human interaction a slothlike five pages a night makes me want to stop reading entirely.
"Stories open up new paths, sometimes send us back to old ones, and close off still others. Telling and listening to stories we too imaginatively walk down those paths – paths of longing, paths of hope, paths of desperation."
~Arthur Kleinman
February 15th, 2007 at 7:34 am
I’m with you…if it isn’t fun and enjoyable, just not worth it!
Too many other good things to do and read.
February 15th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Quitting one book does not mean you are a quitter! That sounds like the reading equivalent of Chinese water torture.
February 15th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Hooray for giving up on what’s not worth doing!
February 16th, 2007 at 8:00 am
I’m about seven eights through Gravity’s rainbow right now and I’m enjoying it. I have been reading it slowly. And have read a few slim quick books while moving through it.
I”m not sure why this is the case but I have not met one women that likes this book. Not one. Maybe, as you contend its the missing emotional investment to a character by the author. Nothing warm and fuzzy here.
February 18th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Three cheers for “enough is enough.” I just started two books in a row and said, forget it, after 100 or so pages. Sounds like you read enough to have experienced the book at least!
February 25th, 2007 at 11:32 am
If you simply love his language and wordplay, may I recommend “The Crying of Lot 49″? Slim little volume, good read.