mclure%sri-prism@sri-unix.UUCP (08/21/84)
Re: Gravity's Rainbow. I tried reading it. I got about one or two hundred pages in and gave up (as I did with Delaney's DAHLGREN and Clavell's SHOGUN and ...) There's only so much claptrap I'm willing to put up with. If the author doesn't catch and hold my attention in one hundred pages, I figure he's failed miserably. Gravity's Rainbow is amusing but grossly overlong. I think much of Pynchon's popularity comes from his 'errie personal life' as perceived by his fans (much as with J.D. Salinger). As far as Joyce goes, I'm not impressed with him either. I think FINNEGAN'S WAKE is pathetic garbage. I don't know a single person who has finished it or even claims to understand 1% of what the guy is trying to say (he's trying to say something?). ULYSSES is somewhat better but has much of the same. If you are looking for superior fiction, pick up a copy of Vladimir Nabokov's THE ANNOTATED LOLITA. It has many puzzle-like themes running through it, but it maintains the humanity so many of the others lack. I have not read a better work in the English language than this book. Joyce, Conrad, Faulkner, etc. all pale in comparison with what the master Nabokov does with the English language in this book. It revitalized the idea of the English novel when it came out. Many critics, at the time, felt that the English novel was dead. Other fine Nabokov books: ADA, THE DEFENSE, PALE FIRE, PNIN. Stuart