First guy: "Your problem is, you're paranoid"
Second guy: "Well, that may be - but it still doesn't stop people from plotting against me behind my back."
I'm re-reading my favourite novel of all time at present.
When I say 'at present' it will really mean for the rest of March as this book is very complex with hundreds of characters. Kind of like Richard (of RBB)'s blogs with his multi-personalities:
And, about as crazy and complicated.
What I like about it is the seamless interweaving of art, music, science and literary allusions into the text and story-line kind of like reading T.S. Eliot poetry.
Gravity's Rainbow is a very long book. It's set out in four parts generally over the period from November 1944 to September 1945 - the last days of the second world war from the launch of Germany's V2 rockets through to the days after USA's atomic bomb attacks on Japan.
Part One Beyond the Zero has the epigraph of a quotation written by Wernher von Braun:
"Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me, and continues to teach me, strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death"
This from the leader of Germany's V2 project which launched 3,000 rockets and directly killed more than 9,000 people.
Part Two Un Perm' au Casino Herman Goering has an epigraph of Merian C. Cooper speaking to Fay Wray (King Kong movie) saying:
"You will have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood"
Part Three In the Zone has the epigraph taken from The wizard of Oz where Dorothy says:
"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore"
Part Four The Counterforce has the epigraph attributed to Richard Nixon over his involvement in the watergate scandal of:
"What?"
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I was going to do a summary of the novel from my reading so far and from my memory of it from earlier reading but I won't be able to do justice to it.
I suggest that you read it and, if you ignore my recommendation take note that it is recognised as the greatest American novel published after the Second World war and Time magazine rated it in the Top 100 all-time greatest novels. Praise indeed but it's is well worth persevering with.
Note: an appreciation of T.S. Eliot rather than S.T. Coleridge poetry may be a prerequisite.
4 comments:
When I saw the picture I thought the book was by Monty Python.
Sounds good. Wonder if it's on libravox. Hey I can handle Eliot!
On second thoughts....not so sure. Isn't he just a tad wordy?
A Game of Chess
by: T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)
THE Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
'Jug Jug' to dirty ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still....
Jug Jug!
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