Multiple locations
Reading Myself to Sleep
Somewhere nearby, possibly beyond the two filing cabinets and a pile of dirty laundry, lies the corpse of modern literature – mainstream and genre fiction, essays, magazines, graphic novels, Xeroxed zines, nonfiction tomes on every imaginable subject – and, before it fell to whatever angle of repose framed it in death, the side of my bed is where that body of works was rather hastily disemboweled.
At least, this is what the (bearded, vaguely sour-smelling) forensics detectives tell me, extrapolating backwards from what evidence is available.
What have we got, among the ichor this week? Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policemen's Union, perhaps too recently mentioned in this blog (but, fuck it, the novel's strange and gorgeous and employs similes sweeter than a Filipino donut dipped in honey), of which a scant 25 pages are left before the gumshoe-and-gefilte-fish narrative's fully devoured. There's Pynchon's Mason & Dixon, which we're halfway through (and have been halfway through for approximately eight months) and are extremely happy about, especially as T.P.'s previous effort, Vineland, really was a (relatively) lame-ass cartoon of a book (as a lot of the critics had warned), whereas Mason & Dixon returns to the glorious overloads of brilliance and complexity of V. and Gravity's Rainbow and will serve as an appetizer for the daunting feast called Against the Day (which hasn't even made it bedside, yet, but remains on the top shelf of the livingroom's largest bookcase). Deep breath.
What have we got, among the ichor this week? Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policemen's Union, perhaps too recently mentioned in this blog (but, fuck it, the novel's strange and gorgeous and employs similes sweeter than a Filipino donut dipped in honey), of which a scant 25 pages are left before the gumshoe-and-gefilte-fish narrative's fully devoured. There's Pynchon's Mason & Dixon, which we're halfway through (and have been halfway through for approximately eight months) and are extremely happy about, especially as T.P.'s previous effort, Vineland, really was a (relatively) lame-ass cartoon of a book (as a lot of the critics had warned), whereas Mason & Dixon returns to the glorious overloads of brilliance and complexity of V. and Gravity's Rainbow and will serve as an appetizer for the daunting feast called Against the Day (which hasn't even made it bedside, yet, but remains on the top shelf of the livingroom's largest bookcase). Deep breath.