foggyreads

by Thomas Pynchon (1973)

2023 reads, 12/12:

Thirty years ago, Martin Scorsese published an opinion piece in the New York Times, defending filmmakers, authors, and other artists whose “style gets in the way of [their] storytelling.” While this piece was mainly a rebuttal to an opinion piece on Federico Fellini, Scorsese lists Thomas Pynchon as one such artist who falls under this category. And after spending almost 50 hours with Gravity’s Rainbow, I’m here to say I agree and appreciate his defense.

I’ve ventured into Pynchon’s work before with The Crying of Lot 49 and Inherent Vice, and I loved them both, so it only made sense that I attempt Gravity’s Rainbow, in its 50th year of publication. Continuing Pynchon’s setting of alternative histories, this book takes place at the end of World War II in an alternate, dream-like, paranoid version of the European theatre.

“He sits tonight by his driftwood fire in the cellar of the onion-topped Nikolaikirche, listening to the sea. Stars hang among the spaces of the great Wheel, precarious to him as candles and goodnight cigarettes.”

The first part of the book, “Beyond the Zero,” was the most difficult to me. Pynchon loves to invoke hysteron proteron (Greek: “later earlier”) at all scales in this book, but mainly in this first section. Individual phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and whole chapters are succumbed to this reversal in time: effect first, cause later. It’s even posed within the first few pages: “Screaming holds across the sky. When it comes, will it come in darkness, or will it bring its own light? Will the light come before or after?”

Pieces start to come together as you read, with connections being made right up to the end. Passages will run off track (example: the introduction of main character Katje, and then immediately being whisked back to the time of her ancestor and learning how he eradicated the dodo birds whilst envisioning them coming together and converting to Christianity). Its twists and turns aren’t for everybody, but everything is written for a reason. As I mentioned in my TCoL49 review, he writes how we think, re-experiencing whole memories in seconds.

“Connection? Of course there’s one. But we don’t talk about it.”

And that’s not to say that GR isn’t slightly prophetic as well. About 200 pages in, starting from the beginning of Part 2, the plot starts to kick in, and we find ourselves on cartoon-like cat-and-mouse chase throughout Parts 2 and 3. Along with control, themes such as War & technology, using The Rocket as a motif, constantly emerge. Pynchon’s books all have some inkling of paranoia as well, himself being a paranoid (you can count on one hand the number of photographs of him out there).

“...what do you think, it’s a children’s story? There aren’t any. The children are away dreaming, but the Empire has no place for dreams and it’s Adults Only in here tonight, here in this refuge with the lamps burning deep, in pre-Cambrian exhalation, savory as food cooking, heavy as soot. And 60 miles up the rockets hanging the measureless instant over the black North Sea before the fall, ever faster, to orange heat, Christmas star, in helpless plunge to Earth.”

Almost every sentence in GR has some reference to some historical event, person or slang that I’ve never heard of. Through reading I’ve learned about the Herero and Namaqua genocides, Kabbalist traditions, the Peenemunde slave camp, the Phoebus cartel (all historically factual, and some of which should have been taught in school) – all while reading actual rocket science. But this is not a textbook, there is a plot to be found here, with jokes and heartwarming moments as well.

“What are the stars but points in the body of God where we insert the healing needles of our terror and longing?”

But you don’t need to get every reference to have fun, and I wouldn’t have read this if it wasn’t enjoyable. I’m nowhere near a WWII history buff, and I never will be, but this was fun and even hilarious at times (examples: Pirate’s banana breakfast, Slothrop’s stream-of-consciousness trip down a toilet looking for his harmonica, and Snake, the unpredictably homicidal horse being paid off to not appear in the US rodeo circuits). His style does not hinder what he is trying to say, I actually think it helps. It’s the mini-episodes make this book fun, it’s the math and physics jokes that make this book enjoyable, it’s the literary acid trips (especially in Part 4) that make this book thought-provoking, and it’s the commentary on politics, War, and control that make this book worth it. His prose is like no other – upon finishing the book the realization hit that I may never read something like it again.

“Most people’s lives have ups and downs that are relatively gradual, a sinuous curve with first derivatives at every point. They’re the ones who never get struck by lightning. No real idea of cataclysm at all. But the ones who do get hit experience a singular point, a discontinuity in the curve of life—do you know what the time rate of change is at a cusp? Infinity, that’s what! A-and right across the point, it’s minus infinity! How’s that for sudden change, eh?”

I’m not sure whether this review has convinced or deterred you, but if you fall in the former camp, the best pieces of advice I have are (1) borrow the eBook from your library (likely no one else is reading it, lol) and read on a Kindle for quick Wikipedia lookups and German translations, (2) read this guide after every chapter to recall the important plot points, and (3) just let your imagination run wild with him. But if this book doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, and you’ve made it to the end of this review, then at least read possibly my favorite quote of the whole book:

“They have found a house in the stay-away zone, under the barrage balloons south of London. The town, evacuated in ’40, is still “regulated”—still on the Ministry’s list. Roger and Jessica occupy the place illegally, in a defiance they can never measure unless they’re caught. Jessica has brought an old doll, seashells, her aunt’s grip filled with lace knickers and silk stockings. Roger’s managed to scare up a few chickens to nest in the empty garage. Whenever they meet here, one always remembers to bring a fresh flower or two. The nights are filled with explosion and motor transport, and wind that brings them up over the downs a last smack of the sea. Day begins with a hot cup and a cigarette over a little table with a weak leg that Roger has repaired, provisionally, with brown twine. There’s never much talk but touches and looks, smiles together, curses for parting. It is marginal, hungry, chilly—most times they’re too paranoid to risk a fire—but it’s something they want to keep, so much that to keep it they will take on more than propaganda has ever asked them for. They are in love. Fuck the war.”

#readingyear2023 #american #physicallyowned #wtf #pynchon

by Rainer Maria Rilke (1923)

2023 reads, 11.75/12 (Interlude II):

To finish my Gravity's Rainbow interlude, I read the final major work of Rilke I had yet to read, The Sonnets to Orpheus. These are a series of 55 sonnets, written in two linked cycles (representing life and death?), written in 1922 in the span of about three weeks.

These poems are described as religious, but I would instead broaden that to spiritual. Like, intensely spiritual. This mysticism is mixed with themes of solitude, life & death, and the arts. In Greek myth, Orpheus was a bard, so symbols of music (specifically a lyre) are interspersed throughout these poems. These symbols are used as a device to represent creating poetry, but I felt it applied to any creative endeavor.

“He alone who has known the roots of the willow can bend the willow-branch into a lyre.”

Like the Elegies, these poems are as deep as you want them to be. You can let the words flow over you, or you can do as much digging as you want, line-by-line, picking apart the allegories, personification, and symbolism throughout. However, I found them to be more readable on the surface than the Duino Elegies. If you are looking to get into Rilke, I would start here (or his Letters to a Young Poet).

“Oh unheard starry music! Isn’t your sound protected from all static by the ordinary business of our days?”

#readingyear2023 #poetry

by Rainer Maria Rilke (1929)

2023 reads, 11.5/12 (Interlude):

I just got to “Part 4: The Counterforce” in Gravity's Rainbow, which I heard is heavily influenced by the works of Rainer Maria Rilke, an early 20th-century German poet. Before continuing on, I figured I’d pause for a brief interlude and catch up a bit on his work (having read The Duino Elegies last year).

This is a collection of letters that Rilke sent to Franz Xaver Kappus, a student at a military academy who sent Rilke his own poems, asking for advice. They correspond over the course of six years, and this published collection contains Rilke’s ten letters to Kappus. These letters touch upon many of the themes in Rilke's work: most notably art, solitude, the difficulty of aligning with a religion. They alternate between down-to-earth passages (I laughed at “today writing is not going to be easy because I have had to write a good number of letters already and my hand is tired” – you didn’t have to write this sentence?) and highly profound statements – highly recommended for anyone wanting to get more into writing or poetry.

“We have already had to adjust our understanding of so many theories of planetary motion, and so too we shall gradually learn to recognize that what we call fate originates in ourselves, in humankind, and does not work on us from the outside.”

#readingyear2023 #poetry

by Clarice Lispector (1943)

2023 reads, 11/12:

“One day she split into two, grew restless, started going out to look for herself.”

I was overjoyed to finally get back into the mystic prose of Clarice Lispector after ending last year with her final book, The Hour of the Star. Her first book, Near to the Wild Heart, written at only 23 years old, ‘follows’ the story of the amoral Joanna. From childhood to adulthood, we don't learn about her in a linear fashion, but in fleeting memories throughout her life. We know everything, yet nothing, about her; Lispector writes a minimal plot at best, opting instead for a spiritual and existential journey through the psyche of Joana through these vignettes of her life. As an example, my favorite chapter, ‘The Encounter with Otávio,’ takes place in the few minutes you are awake in the middle of the night, the ones you don’t even remember after you wake up.

“The dense, dark night was cut down the middle, split into two black blocks of sleep. Where was she? Between the two pieces, looking at them (the one she had already slept, and the one she had yet to sleep), isolated in the timeless and the spaceless, in an empty gap. This stretch would be subtracted from her years of life.”

Joana is an extremely complex character, as she is introspective yet wild, reserved yet disturbed, even violent at time; yet her actions and interactions with others (her aunt, her teacher, her husband Otávio, his old friend Lídia, etc.) take a back seat to her thoughts. Lispector even went as far as to include thoughts from the perspective of these other characters, which helped break apart all the material on Joana.

Towards the end, we are inundated with the phrase de profundis (Latin: “from the depths”), encapsulating all of Joana’s thoughts and decisions we’ve read thus far. Things start to make sense now. The remainder of the book then floods with these stream-of-consciousness monologues ‘from the depths’ of Joana, her visions and thoughts constantly bombarding the reader. In these sections, you must let the words flow through you; I even found myself having to reread passages. This style of writing is a hit or miss, but for me, I can’t wait to dive into other works of “Hurricane Clarice.”

“The two of them sank into a solitary, calm silence. Years passed perhaps. Everything was so limpid as an eternal star and they hovered so quietly that they could feel future time rolling lucid inside their bodies with the thickness of the long past which instant by instant they had just lived.”

#readingyear2023 #physicallyowned #lispector

by H. Jon Benjamin (2018)

2023 reads, 10/12:

Audible gave me a free audiobook, so I wanted to choose something that was not only interesting but had a narrator I would enjoy – so when I saw that H. Jon Benjamin had narrated his own memoir, I knew I had to listen to it. I’m a huge fan of Bob’s Burgers, and I've enjoyed some of his other works (though I never got into Archer), so I figured it would be nice to see how he came into his iconic TV roles.

What I got instead was a hilarious collection of anecdotes and stories from his childhood and teenage years all the way through to his current career. If you are looking for behind-the-scenes information on Bob’s Burgers or Archer, he barely gets into them in the last two chapters of the book. He instead spends time discussing his upbringing, his family, and his failed attempts at writing and starring in TV shows. His stories are insane, especially taken out of context:

“You know that feeling when you realize you have to spend an entire summer with a convicted felon? That’s how I felt.”

This book is downright comical, and his comedic ‘lists’ at the end of certain chapters do satisfy that Bob’s Burger’s-esque pun craving. Anyone remotely interested in his life will get something out of this (especially when he’s the one narrating, so I again highly recommend the audiobook version).

#readingyear2023 #audiobook #bio #humor

edited and translated by Robert Hass (1994)

2023 reads, 9/12:

Poetry was really interesting when we learned about it in school, but it was never my favorite unit in lit class because it was taught with so many ‘rules’ (limericks, acrostics, triplets, etc.). However, the biggest ‘rule’ drilled into our heads was that haikus follow the 5-7-5 syllable structure. Reading these poems dating back to the ‘birth’ of haiku, with masters Bashō, Buson, and Issa, has further opened my mind to what a haiku can truly be. The journal entries from each of these masters were also super interesting, and ended up enriching their respective poetry.

#readingyear2023 #physicallyowned #poetry

by William J. Higginson (1958)

2023 reads, 8/12:

“This is the main lesson of haiku. When we compose a haiku we are saying, ‘It is hard to tell you how I am feeling. Perhaps if I share with you the event that made me aware of these feelings, you will have similar feelings of your own.’”

A great introduction to the art of haiku. Higginson covers famous poets throughout history, and discusses their inspirations by breaking down how each of them approached haiku differently. I now definitely have a better understanding of how to both compose haiku (and why it’s best not to limit yourself to the 5-7-5 syllable 'rule') and appreciate it. Recommended for anyone interested in haiku, and even poetry in general.

#readingyear2023 #poetry

by Don DeLillo (1985)

2023 reads, 7/12:

Death, consumerism, and academic elitism, all set against the backdrop of a hyperreal 1980s America, comprise this satirical novel revolving around Jack Gladney and his stepfamily. Much like We Have Always Lived in the Castle|89724, I actually watched the White Noise movie first on Netflix, without knowing anything prior; this made me want to read the source material to further understand the main themes and anything else the movie might have missed (although I feel the need to say that Greta Gerwig absolutely nailed the role of Babette).

Part I of the book, “Waves and Radiation,” sets in place the many themes throughout. We meet Murray, a new professor at the college where Jack teaches. Through the process of trying to solidify his own “Elvis Studies” program, we quickly descend into a satire of academia. The multitude of superficial pop-culture departments at this college (Hitler studies, Elvis studies, cinematic car crash seminars, to name a few), and the way the professors talk to one another is extremely exaggerated and elitist, albeit entertaining. These scenes were done very well in the movie as well.

"‘We're all brilliant. Isn't that the understanding around here? You call me brilliant, I call you brilliant. It's a form of communal ego.’"

Reading “Part II: The Airborne Toxic Event,” it’s hard to not be reminded of the 2023 Ohio train derailment or any other man-made disasters we learn about in school. The book portrays the negatives of this growth of technology and mass media in the 1980s, leading to a hysteria and borderline obsession over these types of disasters.

The events in Part II lead right into Part III, 'Dylarama,' and it's here that leads to many interpretations as to what the titular “white noise” is. Of course, it could refer to the constant background noise (both visual and audible) of advertisements, mass media, and the metaphorical rubbernecking of man-made disasters. Or even “Mr. Grey,” one who Jack sees in “extraneous flashes,” one whose body “flares with random distortion.” But I think that Jack’s (and Babette’s) fear of death is the white noise – it’s always around them, further exacerbated by everything previously mentioned; Hitler, Elvis, the airborne toxic event, Mr. Gray, and even the advertisements trying to sell you a better life.

"‘How do you plan to spend your resurrection?’ he said, as though asking about a long weekend coming up. ‘We all get one?’"

Also, how awesome are these movie posters?

#readingyear2023 #physicallyowned #american #book2screen

by Hunter S. Thompson (1973)

2023 reads, 6/12:

“Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?”

On the surface, this reads like a tamer version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, although with just as much gonzo, as this novel chronicles Thompson’s coverage of the 1972 democratic primaries and the resulting race between incumbent Nixon and nominee George McGovern. Within the text, Thompson throws in his own haphazard accounts of his time as Rolling Stones’ journalist for the Democratic party.

“...back on the Campaign Trail… running late, as usual: left hand on the wheel and the other on the radio dial, seeking music, and a glass of iced Wild Turkey spilling into my crotch on every turn.”

It starts off a little slow, because like any primary race, you spend the time meeting and learning about an entire cast of politicians. But things pick up as that cast dwindles and as Thompson gets closer to the Democratic and Republican primaries, then to the race between Nixon and McGovern, and finally the resulting aftermath. It was enlightening to see how, over the course of the novel, the campaign took a toll on Thompson (which he never hid from us, remarking “…the last thing I wanted to think about was the grim, inescapable spectre of two more frenzied months on the campaign trail”). To me, that perfectly reflected the fatigue we’ve all been having these past few elections.

“Yes… and… uh, where were we? I have a bad tendency to rush off on mad tangents and pursue them for fifty or sixty pages that get so out of control that I end up burning them, for my own good.”

Thompson gives us an up-close and personal look at the election, with some comprehensive political analysis and interviews, while also remarking on the danger of running for president and bashing the American political system. This work was described as “eerily prophetic,” and while there is no one-to-one analog between present and past politicians, I certainly agreed that entire concepts and commentaries in the campaign heavily reflected that of 2016 and 2020. Of course, that could just be the fact that some things never change.

#readingyear2023 #american #govpol #humor #physicallyowned

by Aaron Fisher (2022)

2023 reads, 5/12:

“By being quiet and present to the tea, on the inside, we are sharing ourselves with the moment. The tea, once a plant – rain, earth, and sky – is now becoming human, a part of the stream of human consciousness.”

This book was a great introduction to the history of tea as a meditation. Right from the beginning, Fisher tells us that the subject of tea, meditation, and Taoism could fill volumes, and that this book doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. Instead, he goes above and beyond to give his own insights as someone living a life of meditation and clarity (and tea!), with some information about tea history and traditional ceremonies. It was a great book, and I enjoyed reading it during my tea sessions.

#readingyear2023 #foodanddrink #philosophy