The Most Pynchon Thing I've Seen on the Internets:

California store selling jerky from cows abducted by aliens

... I bet he's kicking himself this wasn't in Vineland.

Ridley Scott to film The Forever War?

When I heard the rumour a shiver ran down my spine - I had to stand up at my desk and pace around a bit. Could it really be true?

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117993856.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&nid=2564

I'm quite stunned -- it would simply be The Best Thing Ever.

Joe Haldeman's The Forever War is, 34 years after its publication, one of the most intelligent, compassionate pieces of (science) fiction ever written. When Alien out in 1979, I used to think what a great job he'd do it it. I can hardly belive it's going to happen.

Last week, the possibility of a new Thomas Pynchon novel, and now this? If I'm this lucky at the moment, look out for headlines that Russell Brand has contracted Ebola, and bizarrely, every single recording or trace him ever made has been coincidentally lost. Though since the Catholic Church has officially admited that god didn't create man then I shouldn't expect too much.

Books that Didn't Change My Life

All this "Books that Changed My Life" business made me think of the others that I'd read which are often touted as life changing, but just didn't do it for me. So, here are the books that didn't change my life, and the year that they didn't change it.

The Lord of the Rings - J R R Tolkien - age 13
I enjoyed it, but it was just an interesting story weighed down by, well, lore. It should have just been called Lore of the Rings.

The Stranger - Albert Camus - age 24
Mersault kills a guy, waits to be executed. I wasn't much of a Cure fan either. There are far better examples of absurdist fiction. In fact, it's not even the best Camus novel - that's The Plague.

Harry Potter - Joanne Rowling - age 27
I don't really see this as a book - more a list of things that happened with a lot of tacked-on exposition at the end to paper over the many cracks. The first volume killed all further desire to read any of later lists. Really, if you want some children's fantasy that isn't insulting and lazy, read Philip Pullman. "But it gets kids to read!" argue people. True, but it's a shame it's not as well-written as a cereal packet.

Atlas Shrugged etc - Ayn Rand - age 30
People who say that Rand changed their life are just saying "I don't see why I should help or not exploit people and a book gave me legitimacy."

Books that Changed Your Life - Now with bonus Perec!

I was browsing around the other day and saw the usual "list of books that changed your life" and must say I was very disappointed with the sheer predictability of those selected. Life-changing book lists always seem to incorporate: The New Testament, Ayn Rand, Camus' The Stranger, Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and that dross ejected by J K Rowling. There were no surprises (other than "Oh - people still think they can impress people by saying that they've read Camus"), and I would have love to have been surprised by something honest and unexpected on that list -- ("Hey, Watership Down *is* deeply inspiring now you come to mention it!").

Here's mine, with my age at the time because when is just as important as what.

The Tree Wakers - Keith Clare - age 7
The first proper novel I remember reading (I'd read some Paddington beforehand and can't say it changed my life much), it's extremely eerie and captures the otherworldliness of Kew perfectly. When, as an adult, I finally saw the Pagoda I was immediately brought back to the book. I hunted a copy down a copy a couple of years ago and it's still creepy.

Watership Down - Richard Adams - age 8
It was hefty, it had rabbits on the cover and I was 8 years old with limited browsing time left in the library. The longest thing I'd read up to that point, I learned a lot about language, plot structure and snares. When, after I read it, I discovered that a film was being made, that private world I'd occupied was suddenly exposed and my head nearly exploded with the synchronicity of it. I still think of Keehar fondly.

The Forever War - Joe Haldeman - age 10
Utterly gripping and with proper science, this crams a lot in a complicated story - an allegory of the Vietnam war, it clearly demonstrates that conflict is horrible, foolish and an inescapable feature of Humankind.

The New Testament - various - age 11
Yes, it did change my life - this was the book that made me an atheist. Already with strong suspicions, I thought I would go to one of the source books to see if it added any evidence to a shaky foundation for a cult. Quite the opposite, all the flaws of religion were exposed; suddenly I was free to live my life in a meaningful way. I consider it the book for atheists everywhere who want to know more.

Dune - Frank Herbert - age 15
Even to this day, I can't say for sure that I understand the subtleties of Frank Herbert's masterpiece - but that's OK because none of the people who have filmed it got them either. A true rarity in that it has a deeply philosophical plot, describes a detailed world and society, yet never allows the story to be bogged down in details. Instead, the unforgettable characters and concepts carry it along.

UBIK - Philip K Dick - age 18
What can I say about UBIK that's not been said before? There's a strong case for it being the best PKD novel, it certainly has some of his best-realized characters and will keep you guessing for a long time.

Life, a User's Manual - Georges Perec - age 19
Completely different to anything I'd read up until the time or since - each chapter is a description of a different apartment within a Parisian block, developed according to a Euler Square, and describes a snapshot of life within it at one moment, in all 100 apartments, shortly before 8pm on June 23rd 1975. I kid you not. Despite there being no motion, there are 100 interlinking stories here, like looking at a photograph of an event unfolding.

Swimming to Cambodia - Spalding Gray - age 20
Or "I hate that existential idiot" as an ex once described him. Spalding's monologues showed what a unique and beautiful person he was, pushed and dragged this way and that by the encounters that he invited, lured upon himself. Everyone can see a little of themselves in his neuroses and experiences, but at the same time he takes it to new extremes.

The Mezzanine - Nicholson Baker - age 22
The musings of a guy as he takes the escalator back to his office after going out at lunchtime to buy a shoelace and some milk. Covers drinking straws, model aeroplanes, fraying, the postal service. Gave me a key "Wow - other people think like that too" moment.

A Fan's Notes - Frederick Exley - age 24
Another from the genre of "horribly honest, admitting things no person should ever admit" books. This semi-auto biographical account is a confession of a life spent looking for a purpose and then finding it in writing. And pissing people off.

Ulysses - James Joyce - age 24/25/26
This took several attempts and a number of other books as assistance, but I got there in the end and it was wonderful. It contains a beautiful and intricate world where logic seems sometimes optional but it makes sense eventually. The last chapter, consisting of Molly Bloom's soliloquy, is one of the most dazzling things in the English language - and the final sentence, at 4391 words, is captivating.

Winterdance - Gary Poulsen - age 27
Poulsen decides that he wants to write about the Iditarod and then comes to the conclusion that the best way to do this is to race in it - by training his own team of dogs and living in a kennel with them. With angry moose, wolves, weather and what have you he goes through hell and you feel it with him. You will probably read this in one sitting - because you have to know what happens to him.

Mason & Dixon - Thomas Pynchon - age 28
"My goodness - you can read Pynchon" I consider this the starter novel for people who want to read Thomas Pynchon, over and above The Crying of Lot 49. It has all the scope, bad jokes and cheese-rolling of his more notorious works, but you can just swim up a couple of levels and read it as the story of two guys out surveying. A handy book to read beforehand is Dava Sobel's Longitude.

Underworld - Don deLillo - age 30
Good grief this book is incredible - I may never read anything that moves me more, and I'm actually OK with that, I'm happy that it's this one. A gigantic poem about longing disguised as a novel, when I closed it after finishing it, I knew I was in a new stage of my life.

Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson - age 31
It takes a good piece of fiction to finally get me to understand the ζ-function where several non-fiction books and plump, crotch-scratching maths teachers* have failed. And then there's the rest of the book, which is smart, funny and, being Stephenson, has a weak ending.

Scissors and Comb Haircutting - Bob Ohnstad - age 38
I've not actually read this, but my wife has - and this isn't "Books I've read that Changed My Life." This book changed my life because I never have to spend time at the barbers being asked questions about why I don't understand football.

Kindred - Octavia Butler - age 39
Since I am now this huge mass of experiences, behaviours and opinions, built up in layers like sediment, in motion since the Sixties, it requires considerable force to change a life this far along. This book did it, by prompting me to ask a lot of questions about identity and to search out other books in the small, but rewarding, field of African-American Feminist Science Fiction.

Next up, Books that Didn't Change My Life.

* His own crotch. It wasn't that sort of school.

This would be a better Watchmen movie...

The incredibly talented Evan Shaner has visualised the Watchmen as if done by Charles M. Shulz. It's such a genius idea I think it would be a far better movie than Zack Snyder could ever do AND it would get me to sit through an animated Peanuts cartoon. Please, someone make this.

http://explodingmoose.blogspot.com/

"A Journey into the Mind of Thomas Pynchon"

Sheer conjecture, of course, but interesting nonetheless:

Dubini documentary on TP on Altertube, from 2001.

I spent approximately half of last year reading and rereading Against the Day and at times it almost completely possessed my mind -- it's so richly layered and rewarding, it really became an addiction at one point. I keep meaning to write a long review of it as many of the so-called reviews (positive and negative) seem to have been written by people who didn't actually finish the book.

My favourite review is indeed a negative one, by Louis Menand. In his "review" he so hilariously misses the point of the book that it is highly dubious to me that he read more than the first 100 or so pages. Indeed, his summary of the plot covers perhaps 10% of the events in Against the Day, and none of the important ones. Since Menand was not expecting the story to completely change after he had to gave up, he probably thought he could get away with it. No such luck -- the story shifts and evolves so much, that his his referencing solely of the of the set-up device confirms to me that he had to bail out fairly early on. Could he really have read the entire 1085 pages since he did not enjoy the book at all?

Menand's skills as a reviewer are so poor as to be amusing, and as the task of reading Against the Day was utterly beyond him, he should have stuck to something a little more within his range: there are loads of Hello Kitty books on Amazon that need reviewing and he can even write about ones that haven't been published yet.

More on this later -- I have an AtD review in the works that is also an answer to the Menaud review.

I Am Grudglingly Impressed

Let's hope they remember to put the plot in it.

http://rss.warnerbros.com/watchmen/

Of course, when the movie comes out and is unbearably shallow and rubbish, this post will mysteriously disappear.

Against the Point?

I found this little gem out there:

http://www.longpen.com/lp-how-to.html

"not just a long distance signing device, but an all-in-one marketing machine, helping to drive sales of what you are promoting"

Basically, you videoconference to the bookshop and a robot signs your book for you. And I thought those signed stickers were bad. I guess it means authors no longer have to eat cheesy nibbles.

I can't tell if it's an indicator of:

1. How devalued contact with authors has become ("...this is a more intimate experience than a traditional signing, as you are looking directly into the face of the fan, as opposed to briefly looking up from your chair when signing in person. The video conferencing also makes it easier for the fan to be expressive about your work, as the technological distance makes them less nervous") or
2. Just how lazy and self-important some of them are ("It would democratize the book tour and eliminate stressful border and airport line-ups for authors. It would save publishers money on travel and increase the number of events bookstores could host.")

Did I tell you I'm building a really big magnet? You know the sort for attracting asteroids?

They'd Better Know His Name

Delivered-To: -@lovatt.com
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with SMTP id t18cs361648wfo;
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From: Rorschach 
Subject: RE: Costumed heroes
To: Fraser Lovatt <-@lovatt.com>

---

walter not here.

only rorschach.

.RR.

Let the Hating Begin

Received: by ---.---.---.-- with HTTP;
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Message-ID: <--->
From: "Fraser Lovatt" <@lovatt.com>
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Subject: Costumed heroes
Delivered-To: -

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Hey Walter -

Movie about masks, eh?

Better be pirates in it too.

F

PS Sell my email address and
I'll be beating you with
that "The End is Nigh"
placard, mommy's boy.

I guess I deserved it

After looking through my blog I said to my wife "All my blog postings are about books or cats!"

Without turning her eyes away from Project Runway, she said "Now there's a surprise."

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about...

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html

I remember first seeing a phrase in Wired in 1994, that struck a chord with me - but even after thirteen years we still don't really have "Libraries Without Walls for Books Without Pages." However, I think the British Library's "Turning the Pages" project is an exciting step in the right direction. It needs more books, the user interface is dire (but that can change) - but I had one of my happiest hours on the internet so far leafing through that gorgeous copy of Alice's Adventures Underground.

... plus the plain text of a couple of million books available freely online wouldn't go amiss.

In Praise of Sorting

I like sorting. Sorting CDs, I'm not too bothered about - iTunes does that for me*. Mostly I like sorting Lego, but that's a different story.

Vinay sent me a link to an art project - sorting books so that the spines read on. I liked the idea and thought about it through the day, I couldn't wait to try it when I got in. So, here's my answer to Vinay.

"U and I, 24 Hour Party People, Seeing Things, In Pursuit of VALIS, Swimming to Cambodia"

Wait, I have more.

* Actually, Sesame sorted all the CDs one day, which was kind of worrying.

The Chums of Chance and the Search for the Dictionary

Say what you will about Thomas Pynchon ("Oh dear, here we go again...") but he does perform a valuable service with his propensity to rescue obscure words from, well, obscurity. It's not often I encounter an English word that I've never seen before*, but it only takes seven pages of Against the Day (You can see I'm positively racing through it) before the reader is confronted with the word "absquatulate" - which I'm assuming means something along the lines of abscond.

But I'm guessing here because it's in no dictionary I own.

* Though living in Denmark every day is a veritable fusillade of words that, not only have I not heard before, but I'm not even sure I even heard properly.

A Strange Night with Thomas Pynchon

So yesterday, the great big box showed up from Amazon - with just one thing in it: Pynchon's latest, Against the Day.

I'd been fascinated by the book since it stated making its huge presence felt on shelves and in people's minds, but had debated attempting it because I have a rather rocky relationship with Thomas Pynchon's work. He's had six books published previously, and I've only managed to actually finish three of them, you see.

But, emboldened that (ten years ago when I was a younger and smarter man) I'd finished and adored Mason & Dixon (and possibly understood a fair chunk of it) and that there was a AtD wiki as a safety net if I really did get in over my head, I ordered his latest and cursed every day that it was out of stock at Amazon. "How the hell could they have sold out?", I ranted to uninterested colleagues, "Who on Earth is reading this thing?" I was beginning to suspect it was One of Those Books - you know, the type that everyone buys, but that very few people actually read (Foucault's Pendulum, Finnegan's Wake, A Suitable Boy and others).

So what are the other two I managed? Vineland and The Crying of Lot 49. Don't get me wrong, I love Pynchon's work, I just always seen to bail out of Gravity's Rainbow at about page 50 - and don't even get me started on V. Nevertheless, I was tremendously excited by AtD's arrival and after a large glass of Temperanillo and a David Attenborough documentary, I took the book to bed and read the first four syntactically dense pages.

They were great, as first four pages go, if a little unexpected. I put out the light and fell asleep - and spent the entire night locked in a bizarre, ever repeating loop involving that bloody airship and fellows with strange names. Hour upon hour went by, and even when I awoke and fell back asleep I was on the damn airship again.

My theory here is that there is something about TP's writing, an illogical element, that bypasses the rational mind and goes straight for the subconscious, a bit like some types of hypnosis. Or the irritating music I often listen to.

I still have some 1081 pages to go. Looks like a lot of disturbed nights.