Message-ID: <12672@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 21-Aug-84 13:50:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12672
Posted: Tue Aug 21 13:50:17 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 23-Aug-84 01:24:07 EDT
Lines: 29

I see Peter's at it again; 'bout time for a balanced view...

Long time ago a friend of mine sat on my chest until I promised to
read GRAVITY'S RAINBOW.  I read the first 24,268 pages or so
(just kidding guys, it only FELT that long) and then gave up.

Is GRAVITY'S RAINBOW literature?  I guess so; says so on the label
and all that.  Is it a story?  No.

What it is is an inner core of clever notions embedded in a
15,000 kilometer-thick outer crust of self-indulgent, chaotic,
goshwowaintiawordsmith verbal posturings.  I happen to be a
reactionary with respect to *Style* (note ASCII reverence marks)
and I believe it should lurk in the dark spaces beneath the
prose and bite you in the ass when you aren't looking.  All through
GR I felt myself getting hit so hard on the head with *Style* that
my ears are still ringing.  Pynchon was straining so hard
for *Style* I thought he'd bust a hemmorhoid and bleed to death.

There was a good novel knocking around in there somewhere.  Written
cleanly at about one third its current monumental length, the book
just might have had something real to say about war and human
foolishness.  As it stands, I think it's terminally artsyfartsy
and not worth the effort to find a gem every 300 pages.

Send brickbats freight collect; they're too heavy for UPS.

--Jeff Duntemann
  duntemann.wbst@xerox