No Coffee, Day Three

I mentioned in the preceding post that I'm restructuring my routine. What this restructure amounts to is an embargo against all coffee seeking access to my system. To a lesser extent, it also has the effect of keeping me out of cafes.

Now, considering that I spend a great deal of time in cafes either reading or writing or (all too often) talking to people/people-watching, why would spending less time in them result in a new routine that is more beneficial to my reading and writing? The answer, of course, is the elimination of the third item on the above list: talking to people.

David Foster Wallace comments on the creepiness of writers in one of the essays in his recent collection Consider the Lobster, which is a great book. Writers, he notes, do this creepy thing where they tend to stare at other people in public places. Writers have to observe other people to learn about their mannerisms, the way they look, etc. I do a tremendous amount of this when I'm in public places. I can't help it. I also am a horrible eavesdropper. An interesting question to think about is, do I observe people because I am a writer, or do I write because I have a deep fascination with the ways in which people interact?

Now, for the problem: when I should be reading or writing, I am watching people. It's a little like Attention Deficit Disorder.

So, what do I need? I need a place to play with language that is free of distractions. No such place seems to exist. I need an office. But, at least for now, that's a pipe dream, so I need a chewing gum, duct tape, and paperclip sort of solution. Maybe the library?

The search is on!

Three Weeks: A Table of Contents

Car Trouble..............Week 1
Bad Cold.................Week 2
Routine Shake-up.........Week 3
Afterword................Today

Week 1, in which I shared one car with my wife for approximately one week.

I'm not complaining. It just happens. You're a resident of one state, and you live in another. Renewal notices one way or another never get to you. Your license plate tags and vehicle registration expire. You don't notice. Your security pass for work expires. You notice. You can't get a new one because your registration is no good. You send for a new one. You wait. Meanwhile, the other car, which is a five-speed and which only one of you can drive, becomes your only car. One of you drives the other to work and from work. Mornings are shot. Afternoons are shot. Evenings are what they are: dinner and TV (O, God, the TV, the home invader...).

Week 2, in which I suffered from what I thought was a cold and then thought was the flu.

Again, it happens. It's winter. I don't need to explain this, do I?

Week 3, in which I struggle, unsuccessfully, to wrangle my routine back to normal.

Longer than normal workdays for both my wife and me resulted in a week much like the two proceeding.

Afterword.

Here I am, February 25, and I'm on page 314 of Gravity's Rainbow. I've fought feelings of failure all during the past three weeks: failure to read, failure to write. I'm not sure if these feelings are entirely healthy. It's good to feel some sort of drive, yes? But is it good to beat yourself up over an unavoidably overcrowded schedule? I'm typically awake for sixteen hours each day, and there, unfortunately, is only so much I can do with them.

I'm working on ways to juggle my routine that will perhaps free up some time for more reading, more writing. We'll see.

Out of the Debris Cloud

What makes Pynchon's work so difficult?

I find myself finally able to answer this question with some clarity now that I've reached Part 2 of Gravity's Rainbow. The first 177 pages of the novel is all set up.

Part 2 begins the action. The characters have all waited (not-so-patiently) in ranks behind the curtain as the audience has labored through the playbill, learning about their backgrounds, their situations/motivations, and now the curtain rises and out they come, streaming past the proscenium and into the crowd because the drama they begin to act out is too complex to be constrained to any stage.

Now finally Pynchon is liberated to do what he does best, which is to let his imagination go nuts. He's off immediately into the realm of the fantastic, and, with any luck, he'll stay there until the novel's conclusion. I don't know how he's managed to avoid the label of science fiction. Perhaps just by writing as well as he possibly can.

2 Feb. - Page 201 - Tyrone Slothrop is on the run.

Most wonderful element introduced thus far: a Pavlovian-conditioned octopus.

(Next to no) Progress Report

Oh, God, what a wasted weekend from a reading point of view. Saturday morning I read ten pages before heading off to an antique show. $4 to park, $5 per person to enter the show, so my wife and I plunked down $14 before ever seeing an antique. That, of course, is how they get you. If I could have somehow previewed the antiques that were for sale on the floor, I'd have stayed home reading Gravity's Rainbow.

30 Jan. - Page 154 - I wish something would happen.

Gravity's Rainbow - My Book of the Month

I'm reading Gravity's Rainbow this month (and probably will be throughout February, too), so I'm a little afraid this blog will be fantastically boring until I'm done. Why? Because I can't very well review a book until it's finished and on the shelf. The best I can do is give you progress reports as I go.

26 Jan. - Page 138 - Plot still largely absent.

The trouble with Pynchon is that his style of writing is so seductive that I keep coming back for more, even when nothing is happening. Getting through twenty pages a day is a solid achievement! Reading Pynchon is like reading Proust: you're not after a good yarn; it's the writing.

This, by the by, is my third attempt at Gravity's Rainbow. So far, it's my most successful attempt. How do I know, you might ask? Because I actually know what's going on this time! My previous two attempts (when I was young and had read nothing) were like wandering through a cloud bank. Vague structures loomed. I was always wandering off the path (Pynchon is not for those who have trouble focusing their thoughts). So, both times, after about a hundred pages (bad omen; see above) I gave up.

Now however, I finally find myself able to pierce the fog and follow the narrative. It's about time! I read V. while attending seminary (long story, which I'll save for later), and I reacted to it in a way I had not experienced since reading The Sound and the Fury. I immediately read The Crying of Lot 49 and Vineland. But Gravity's Rainbow stopped my progress through Pynchon's library of work cold. That was my second attempt at the book, the first being while I was in college at a time when extracurricular reading of any kind was all but impossible.

Perhaps once I've navigated this fogbank, Mason & Dixon will lift, also.

Welcome to the Review Desk

You have reached the Review Desk, the purpose of which is to disseminate reviews of books, the occasional film, and the even more occasional compact disc. The books I review will not necessarily be newly published. In fact, part of this project is an attempt to work my way through the to-be-read (TBR) stack, which, thanks to Christmas, has grown to a height of several stories (oh, God, no pun intended, I swear!). For your amusement, I'll also keep a running tab on the (often ridiculous) number of new books purchased during any of my all-too-frequent visits to Barnes & Noble, Broad Street Books, or Prince Books.

Enjoy.