― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 09:23 (seventeen years ago) link
Ezra Tessler gives a summary:
the most striking example of Koch’s literary inventiveness is ‘The Red Robins’ (1975), the longest piece in the collection and perhaps the most well known of Koch’s relatively unacknowledged fiction. This dizzying 56 chapter, 150 page novel-like epic explodes into free-form prose, poetry, drama, and countless other incarnations of literary expression. Resiliently difficult to summarize, Koch’s hyperkinetic tale loosely follows the adventures of a group of pilots led by a morally ambiguous figure named Santa Claus as they swoop in and around Asia. The Red Robins inhabit—as if at random—jungles, cities, beaches, and clouds, while the story’s fantastical whims burst in and out of narrative, dialogue, list, rhyme, unconnected to specific time or event. There are no ‘characters’ in the traditional sense of robust personage. Instead, the reader meets a barrage of people, things, and places, some of which appear multiple times, most of which only momentarily. Together they get heaped in a spontaneous whirlwind so schizophrenic and bawdy as to rival the likes of Rabelais, Sterne, and Burroughs.
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 09:30 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 09:35 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 13:37 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 13:40 (seventeen years ago) link
― stet (stet), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 13:58 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 14:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― Mike Lisk (b_buster), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 15:24 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 16:36 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 18:25 (seventeen years ago) link
(click on 'tuesday' and fast fwd to 35 mins and available for a week)
― xyzzzz__ (jdesouza), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 23:34 (seventeen years ago) link
"squints from needlework carried past the borderlands of sleep in clockless bad light, women in headscarves, crocheted fascinators, extravagantly flowered hats, no hats at all, women just looking to put their feet up after too many hours of lifting, fetching, walking the jobless avenues, bearing the insults of the day..."
I also enjoyed Frankie Ferdinand saying " 'st los Hund?".
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 23 November 2006 00:35 (seventeen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 23 November 2006 00:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 23 November 2006 01:25 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 02:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― Casuistry, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 17:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― jed_, Thursday, 15 March 2007 23:10 (seventeen years ago) link
― Stevie T, Friday, 16 March 2007 14:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― frankiemachine, Friday, 16 March 2007 20:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― s.clover, Saturday, 17 March 2007 19:26 (seventeen years ago) link
― s.clover, Sunday, 18 March 2007 06:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― s.clover, Sunday, 18 March 2007 07:07 (seventeen years ago) link
― thomp, Thursday, 22 March 2007 19:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― thomp, Thursday, 22 March 2007 19:21 (seventeen years ago) link
― thomp, Thursday, 22 March 2007 19:23 (seventeen years ago) link
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_nXknRDZBs0E/SUaMDxbkY2I/AAAAAAAAChI/X-U3-R60Pz0/s400/pynchon.jpg
So... Vineland Redux?
― Stevie T, Tuesday, 16 December 2008 11:26 (fifteen years ago) link
Publisher Penguin's catalog reveals details about the upcoming book by Thomas Pynchon. As previously reported, it will be a detective novel hitting shelves next summer; the news is the title, "Inherent Vice." And details about the plot: It’s been awhile since Doc Sportello has seen his ex-girlfriend. Suddenly out of nowhere she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with. Easy for her to say. It’s the tail end of the psychedelic sixties in L.A., and Doc knows that “love” is another of those words going around at the moment, like “trip” or “groovy,” except that this one usually leads to trouble. Despite which he soon finds himself drawn into a bizarre tangle of motives and passions whose cast of characters includes surfers, hustlers, dopers and rockers, a murderous loan shark, a tenor sax player working undercover, an ex-con with a swastika tattoo and a fondness for Ethel Merman, and a mysterious entity known as the Golden Fang, which may only be a tax dodge set up by some dentists. In this lively yarn, Thomas Pynchon, working in an unaccustomed genre, provides a classic illustration of the principle that if you can remember the sixties, you weren’t there . . . or . . . if you were there, then you . . . or, wait, is it . . .
It’s been awhile since Doc Sportello has seen his ex-girlfriend. Suddenly out of nowhere she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with. Easy for her to say. It’s the tail end of the psychedelic sixties in L.A., and Doc knows that “love” is another of those words going around at the moment, like “trip” or “groovy,” except that this one usually leads to trouble. Despite which he soon finds himself drawn into a bizarre tangle of motives and passions whose cast of characters includes surfers, hustlers, dopers and rockers, a murderous loan shark, a tenor sax player working undercover, an ex-con with a swastika tattoo and a fondness for Ethel Merman, and a mysterious entity known as the Golden Fang, which may only be a tax dodge set up by some dentists.
In this lively yarn, Thomas Pynchon, working in an unaccustomed genre, provides a classic illustration of the principle that if you can remember the sixties, you weren’t there . . . or . . . if you were there, then you . . . or, wait, is it . . .
― Manchego Bay (G00blar), Tuesday, 16 December 2008 11:36 (fifteen years ago) link
man, i haven't even reread against the day yet
― thomp, Wednesday, 17 December 2008 00:05 (fifteen years ago) link
honestly that description is not too promising.
― J.D., Wednesday, 17 December 2008 20:29 (fifteen years ago) link
yeah it sounds terrible to me. and definitely reminiscent of vineland which i still am not keen on (maybe i need to re-read it?)
― t_g, Wednesday, 17 December 2008 20:35 (fifteen years ago) link
Yep, Vineland much better the second time. I thoroughly enjoyed it the 2nd time, and didn't really like it at all the first time.
― hugo, Monday, 29 December 2008 19:41 (fifteen years ago) link
vineland is grebt but the first chunk of it (before the explication of the DL & Takeshi plot, mebbe) is total autopynchon zappaishness, maybe kind of sours most first reads
― thomp, Tuesday, 30 December 2008 13:43 (fifteen years ago) link
The most striking thing about is that if you had handed me the first 30 pages, I would have staked my life I was reading the opening of the new Elmore Leonard.
― Eazy, Friday, 29 May 2009 19:05 (fourteen years ago) link
apparently, according to amazon uk, people who pre-order inherent vice are likely to at the same time buy the kindly ones by jonathan littell
― thomp, Friday, 29 May 2009 19:45 (fourteen years ago) link
So the Kindley ones are buying The Kindly Ones?
― Eazy, Friday, 29 May 2009 19:51 (fourteen years ago) link
Never had a clue this was coming out till BBC discussed it tonight. I see now the few posts here, but it has not generated any noise in my hearing till now.
They said 'unaccustomed territory for him'. Um, drug-addled paranoid psychedelic CA eccentrics with daft names in the late 1960s?
Despite which he soon finds himself drawn into a bizarre tangle of motives and passions whose cast of characters includes surfers, hustlers, dopers and rockers, a murderous loan shark, a tenor sax player working undercover, an ex-con with a swastika tattoo and a fondness for Ethel Merman, and a mysterious entity known as the Golden Fang, which may only be a tax dodge set up by some dentists.
I swear, that is practically the least unaccustomed sentence about Pynchon I can imagine.
― the pinefox, Friday, 17 July 2009 23:51 (fourteen years ago) link
Haven't read Against The Day, or any Pynchon novel, but Dale Peck's review of AtD might lead me to:
http://dalepeck.com/exclusives/heresy-of-truth.html
― gato busca pleitos (Eazy), Saturday, 31 July 2010 17:49 (thirteen years ago) link
it makes me want to unread it tbh
― thomp, Saturday, 31 July 2010 18:12 (thirteen years ago) link
not sure what his point is by the end. he liked the book?
― cutty, Monday, 2 August 2010 01:03 (thirteen years ago) link
I sorta never considering reading Vineland much but a back-to-back reading with Inherent Vice might be worth the time?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/31/thomas-pynchon-vineland-rereading
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 2 August 2010 10:01 (thirteen years ago) link
Can't really imagine how or why anyone could view Against The Day as his first "great" book. What flaws would one detect in Gravity's Rainbow or Mason & Dixon that are absent in Against The Day?
― Matt DC, Monday, 2 August 2010 11:03 (thirteen years ago) link
there's an argument to be made that the earlier books sacrifice readability on the altar of dramatic entropy, whereas AtD is readable and never aims to fall apart
― Eggs, Peaches, Hot Dogs, Lamb (remy bean), Monday, 2 August 2010 11:15 (thirteen years ago) link
remy did you read ATG?
― cutty, Monday, 2 August 2010 11:35 (thirteen years ago) link
has anyone here reread 'against the day'? i'm curious what the experience is like because even though it would obviously be worth something—you just can't see every little thing in the right light in a book that big the first time through—i haven't quite felt yet like there's a burning need to reread it. it's like it was too lucid or something.
whereas i've never finished 'mason & dixon' but don't mind rereading the parts i have finished over and over again.
― j., Saturday, 25 September 2010 03:01 (thirteen years ago) link
i'm about to start it
― cutty, Sunday, 26 September 2010 01:31 (thirteen years ago) link
missed this bit of news late last year
http://www.filmjunk.com/2010/12/02/p-t-anderson-to-direct-inherent-vice-starring-robert-downey-jr/
― andrew m., Thursday, 6 January 2011 20:18 (thirteen years ago) link
However, the book is available right now for those who just can't wait!
― Aimless, Thursday, 6 January 2011 20:29 (thirteen years ago) link
wow i'm a little over halfway through against the day and it's killing me how amazing the narrative has become. kit in the mayonnaise factory was a recent favorite.
― cutty, Wednesday, 2 February 2011 17:59 (thirteen years ago) link
the part with merle rideout and the photographs coming to life... holy shit
― cutty, Tuesday, 15 March 2011 16:15 (thirteen years ago) link
you all saw there's a new pynchon right
― kristof-profiting-from-a-childs-illiteracy.html (schlump), Tuesday, 8 January 2013 01:08 (eleven years ago) link