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like Digital Hermes I just finished my second reading of GR. It had taken several attempts, as the scene with the adenoid eating st paul's is always the point of no return.
finally, got beyond it.
=== thematic spoilers follow ===
Knowing in part what was going to happen from the first reading, gave me the chance to focus on all the things that had left me confused. It was much more satisfying (and funny) the second time around. I may pick it up again in another 5 years or so.
I find this to be the greatest work of American postmodern fiction in English. It is at heart a picareque story, which unravels the roots of our own culture's darkness in the tumult of the second world war.
Not only did the war engage most of the nations of the world, it also changed the way we think about one another, and interact. The V2 which begins the novel, gives way to the fat man & little boy that end the war.
The book is a lament that the fortunes of war no longer belong to Mars, but now belong to Pluto (death & money).
here's a quote that's yet appropriate:
“Don’t forget the real business of the War is buying and selling. The murdering and the violence are self-policing and can be entrusted to non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death’s a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try ‘n’ grab a piece of the Pie while they’re still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets. Organic markets, carefully styled ‘black’ by the professionals, spring up everywhere.”
This is a work of genius that some may appreciate as pap. |
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