Against the grain
At long, long, last I have finished Against the Day. I was going to post some notes on what I didn’t understand about it, but realised I’d be here all night. So instead here are some entirely random thoughts. They are in a bullet list only because I don’t have the energy to shape them into something coherent. (Sorry, not putting you off, am I?)
- I am very pleased to have finished it within 12 months.
- I am very pleased I had the willpower to pick it up again after putting it down for two months, with only 100 pages to go.
- I couldn’t honestly recommend it, but I would recommend The Crying of Lot 49. It’s shorter, it’s stupider, and it’s got more songs in it.
- Although I did understand what was happening most of the way through, I generally didn’t have a bloody clue why it was happening.
- I’m not sure if it had an actual plot.
- I’m struggling to say anything about characters. However I do have a good idea what James Lasdun meant when he said they were “pretty rudimentary as occupants of regular terrestrial space”. They are rather like pieces being moved round a game board to further the author’s own ends rather than being characters in their own right.
- Mind you, I have no idea what the author’s own ends might be.
- I did love the characters The Chums of Chance. They seemed to have come from their own series of pulp stories of derring-do, with its own archane linguistic style, yet they also existed in the same universe as the other characters. As I mentioned before, a particular highlight was when for no apparent reason they abandoned their unnamed secret organisation, joined a travelling harmonica marching band academy for four pages, then just as mysteriously rejoined their original organisation. Surreal.
- There aren’t enough songs. Thomas Pynchon throws a lot of stupid songs into his novels, but sadly they are few and far between here.
- The sex scenes are just baffling.
- I did manage to stay on the ball enough to spot the mistake on page 1,074.
- I really ought to find out what a zeta function is.
- The story of Smegmo is priceless.
- Anna informs me that the book is no good for the Alexander Technique, but it may serve as a good doorstop.
Oh goodness, I hope Thomas Pynchon doesn’t come across this while Googling himself.
