Being and Formulating

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Originally uploaded by Tombrarian

On a two day roll with my Pics of the Day. I think for the first few days, I’m just going to take a picture of the first thing I think of just to get in the habit. I’m the type to bring a camera with me somewhere and then forget to take any pictures, which is one of the reasons I want to start a pic of the day project. I often regret not taking more pictures and want to have that option more on my mind.

I’ve been reading Infinite Jest since the summer. I have been enjoying it, but it is a really fat book, so it’s been taking a while. I’ve taken a few breaks from it as well. Twice back in the fall when I was traveling because I didn’t want to lug it with me on the place. And I decided to take a break from it over my winter holiday because, with my time off, I figured I could read something shorter cover-to-cover. I’m about 200 pages into Inherent Vice, so it’s quite possible that I will finish it soon, if not by the end of the weekend.

Not sure when I’ll get back into Infinite Jest because I will be traveling again on Friday. Maybe I will just lug it with me this time since I don’t want to set it aside for too long.

I am enjoying Inherent Vice. Probably my favorite Pynchon in a while. There are things I admire about both Mason & Dixon and Against the Day, but wasn’t overall that impressed with either. Inherent Vice really is a companion piece to Vineland, both being California novels and both being shorter and less epic than some of Pynchon’s fatter novels.

I’m finding the California aspects of Inherent Vice particularly interesting now that I live close to CA and have visited a few times. I also know more people from CA, so can relate to those parts of the novel a little differently than I would have if I still lived in Philadelphia.

I finished Against the Day about 5 days after Inherent Vice came out. I wasn’t going to rush out and buy Inherent Vice considering the pile of books I have at home waiting for my attention, but a large chain bookstore of whom I’m a member, sent me a 40% off coupon, so there you have it.

I began Against the Day right before our trip to Yosemite, so it took me almost two-and-a-half months to read, with a break for Revolutionary Road. Overall, I liked Against the Day, but it certainly is a lot longer than it needs to be. The book is overly ambitious, not surprising coming from Pynchon.

A lot of critics criticize Pynchon on the grounds that his characters often lack substance, that they often stand in for an idea, which, in some instances is true. But Pynchon is quite capable of creating fully realized and emotionally engaging characters. I found the main plot line of Against the Day about the Traverse family and their quest for revenge full of interesting characters and, for the most part, that plot line is quite engaging and often exciting. As with most of Pynchon’s big novels, any sense of a main plot is obfuscated by multiple tangent plots and hundreds of other characters. And it is with some of these subplots that Against the Day drags. I found myself thinking that there was a really great novel about the Traverse family lost in all the other chaos.

At the same time, however, it’s not easy to dismiss these tangents because many of them are important to the bigger ideas of the novel. The stories of Against the Day take place from the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 to the years following the end of World War I. The novel traces some historical events and some imaginary events that lead to the War to End All Wars. Part of what I found so engaging about Against the Day is how Pynchon uses this history to foreshadow the violence, corporate malfeasance, and social upheaval that pervades the rest of that century and the first decade of the 21st. Although the events of the book take place in the early part of the 20th century, it is very much a reaction to the G.W. Bush administration. But it is not only a criticism of that administration, but it is also a criticism of how we painted ourselves into that particular corner. Then again, as Pynchon himself supposedly said in a blurb about Against the Day:  “With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.”

Speaking of Inherent Vice, Penguin Press has released a trailer for the novel narrated by Thomas Pynchon: Read more…

I took a break from reading Against the Day (and from the summer of long novels) to read Revolutionary Road. The main reason I took the break was because I was flying to Chicago and didn’t feel like lugging an 1,085 page hardback. It’s now August of my self-imposed summer of reading fat novels and I still have more that 200 pages left in Against the Day. I was hoping to have this and at least one other fat novel done before Inherent Vice comes out this week but that’s not going to happen.

The break for Revolutionary Road was worth it. I read about half of it on the plane and in Chicago, and I finished the second half the week we got back. I was not at all familiar with the book or with Richard Yates until I read a review of the movie. I have a strange fascination with the suburbs, especially in the development of the suburbs (as a place and as a way of life) in the years following WWII. When I read what the setting was in the film review, I knew I wanted to read the book before seeing the movie.

Revolutionary Road is reminiscent of the works of Raymond Carver and captures a similar post-war ennui as something like The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. Like those works, Revolutionary Road does not paint a pretty picture of post-war suburban life. For Frank Wheeler, in Revolutionary Road, and Tom Rath, in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, life in the suburbs and in business is drab and uneventful compared to their experience in the war. This discontent wreaks havoc on their family lives.

What’s difficult to appreciate is the novelty these works presented in the late 1950s. In the 21st Century, the idea that the suburbs are not some kind of blissful paradise is rather banal. But, at the time, this idea was unconventional and daring.

The film, Revolutionary Road, doesn’t quite live up to the novel, but it quite excellent. The film is very faithful to the book, with, of course, many scenes left out for length considerations. Having read the book, I wondered if these exclusions left too many gaps in the narrative and left too much unexplained. The biggest omission was the background story about Frank and his father. This background gives great weight to Frank’s working at Knox. In the film, Franks does explain a little bit of this background, but it certainly doesn’t compare to the actual scenes in the book. That said, the film still holds up well on its own. Even though I am not a big Leonardo DiCaprio fan, I knew he would make a great Frank Wheeler. Kate Winslet is likewise a perfect April Wheeler.

I am about 650 pages into Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day, just a mere 445 more to go. I have deemed this the summer of fat books and am starting with Against the Day.

I had purchased this book when it first came out toward the end of 2006. I began reading it and was enjoying it more or less but was not overly impressed. I got about halfway through when the reality of moving to Las Vegas hit, and I got very busy with making plans and packing. Because I was not overly thrilled with the novel, it got packed up and stayed in the box until recently.

When I heard Inherent Vice is coming out in August, I decided I wanted to give Against the Day another try and attempt to read the entire thing before the new book comes out.

I’m not sure what I missed the first time I tried reading it, but I am absolutely loving Against the Day on the second try. I think part of my issue might be that I really enjoyed the Chums of Chance section that opens the novel, but this story line is not a main plot line. I should know better with Pynchon, but I think I may have focused too much of my initial reading on hoping for more C of C and was not fully appreciating the other sections.

This time around, I went in knowing that the Traverse family is the main focus and have found that story to be rather interesting, exciting, and moving. I also am finding it interesting because this story line starts out much like a Western, but one that takes place at the very end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Centuries. Modernity is creeping into this way of life. It reminds me in some way of The Wild Bunch, which, if I recall correctly, takes place during a similar time and is likewise about how modernity changed the face of the western United States.

So my summer of reading fat novels is off to a good start. I was hoping to finish Against the Day before taking a trip later this week, but I don’t think I will be able to. As much as I am enjoying the book, I am not looking forward to lugging it on the plane.

It’s a bit difficult to keep up with posts about the CineVegas films since, well, I’m in the theater all day. Being thus, I will shoot for shorter overviews.

Impolex:

Yikes. I was very curious about this movie since it sounded like it was inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. It certainly was but very very loosely. The film centers on Tyrone who is searching the woods for “his” miniature V-2 rocket. Eh…that’s about it as far as plot goes. He wanders about the woods, bumps into strange characters, speaks with a talking octopus, makes out with a rocket. Films ends with an extended scene of Tyrone talking with Katje, who had been pestering him in the woods. Not sure how long this scene is but it felt like it would never end.

Plot-wise, Impolex uses Gravity’s Rainbow as a jumping off point but really has nothing much to do with the book. Characters have names from the book but they aren’t the characters; they just have the same names. The film makes references to items from the book: kazoos, bananas, the aforementioned octopus. But none of these references contribute anything to the story. They are just details thrown in.

I was disappointed not only because there was no substantial connection to Pynchon, but also because I didn’t want to start my day bored to tears. Impolex is only 74 minutes but as John Simon once said about Robert Creeley’s poetry: “They are short; they are not short enough.”

Moon

Moon, on the other hand, was phenomenal. I think part of the reason I was so taken with it is that it is an intelligent, philosophical science fiction film that is a throwback to films like 2001, Alien and Solaris, with a touch of Philip K. Dick thrown in. Director Duncan Jones admitted as much in the Q & A after the film.

It’s hard to say much about what Moon is about since saying anything feels like it would give away some of the ample twists the film provides. Sam Rockwell is excellent as Sam Bell, an astronaut who works by himself on a moon base operated by a company that extracts energy from moon rocks. The isolation wears on his mind and a hallucination causes him to have an accident, after which, Moon takes off in a fascinating and challenging direction.

The Square

The Square is about an affair gone very very wrong. Married man is in an affair with a married woman. Married woman’s husband shows up with a bag of money. Married women wants to steal money so that she and married man can run off. Nothing good can come of this and nothing does.

The Square is very bleak and intense. But as needs to happen in such a tale, the characters make poor choices that make a bad situation worse. There is a lot to like about The Square, but some of the poor choices feel, at times, a bit mechanical. The choices are made to prolong the plot.

Being quite the Thomas Pynchon fan, I was intrigued to find out a documentary about him is available. Thomas Pynchon: A Journey into the Mind of [p.] is written and directed by Donatello Dubini and Fosco Dubini. Although just recently released on dvd, the film was made in 2001 and originally released in the UK in 2003. I hadn’t realized that the documentary was nearly 8 years old when watching it and was initially disappointed that it didn’t include more recent material.

Given the fact that so little is know about Pynchon’s life, I didn’t know what to expect from the documentary. The biographical aspects that the film covers will be familiar to any Pynchon fan: his time in the navy, his job at Boeing, his trip to Mexico. There’s nothing new here except some far-fetched speculations by some of the interviewees.

Also, Pynchon fans will be interested to see some of the people from Pynchon lore: Jules Siegel, an old friend of Pynchon’s, Chrissie Wexler, one of Pynchon’s early loves, George Plimpton who wrote one of the earliest reviews of V. and “Professor” Irvin Corey who infamously accepted the National Book Award for Gravity’s Rainbow on Pynchon’s behalf.

Because of the lack of biographical information about Pynchon, the film spends a  good portion of the first hour also placing Pynchon’s work into the context of the times. Most interesting is the information about the CIA’s involvement of LSD and the protests against the  Viet Nam War. The film also includes some interesting archival footage, especially of Peenemünde and the Mittlewerk factory. Unfortunately, some of the footage feels like filler.

Although there were no new revelations for me in the first part of the film, I was more or less enjoying it. However, the last 20 minutes or so focuses on two men obsessed with getting a current picture of Pynchon. One, Richard Lane, scrutinizes a CNN clip that supposedly captures the reclusive writer. The other, James Bone, stalks Pynchon to get his picture. Frankly, I don’t care what he looks like and was very put off by these so-called fans. If they had any real respect for the writer they would allow him to enjoy the privacy he so famously seeks.

I was also disappointed that the film does not mention Vineland at all and onlly mentions the release of Mason & Dixon as an excuse to lead into the stalkers.

Somebody had to do it: http://www.steamthing.com/2008/06/slow-learner.html