The Crying of Lot 49

Read from Sunday, November 6th to Tuesday, November 8th.

The Crying of Lot 49, by Thomas Pynchon.  My first novel by Pynchon, it was discussed heavily in How to Read Literature like a Professor.  It is a very original satire written in the mid-60's.  The main character, Oedipa Maas, is tapped to be the executor of her old boyfriend's massive California estate.  She leaves her DJ husband, Mucho, to spend time on the estate and figure out what this guy, Pierce Inverarity, owned and all his real estate holdings as well.  However, for Oedipa it is a descent into near madness as she is thrust into a giant, world-wide conspiracy, or so she believes.  Tristero is an old postal service that operated in Europe in the middle ages, and it was opposed by Thurn and Taxis.  Tristero was crushed in the 18th century, but now Oedipa begins seeing all sorts of references to the organization throughout the estate and town of this man.  She is led to believe that Tristero is still conducting an underground mailing operation, using secret symbols and the acronym W.A.S.T.E.

Oedipa cannot seem to find any sort of hard facts on the organization, but she tries to hunt down information.  She meets many interesting characters, like scientists working on perpetual motion, a Beatles-like band of emo hippies, a lawyer she has an affair with, her psychiatrist (and ex-Nazi) who prescribes LSD, and a professor at a college.  However, people start disappearing mysteriously as Oedipa discovers more and more references.  Oedipa does not have any solid evidence, and she is constantly doubting whether or not she is just hallucinating everything, but every time she doubts herself, something new happens.  The term 'crying of lot 49' refers to the auctioning of a stamp collection held by Pierce, which may or not contain Tristero stamps.

It is a wonderful novel of conspiracy theories and a hidden side of history of the Old West and Europe.  It is a quick read, and I read most of it one sunny afternoon lying on the grass in Meridian Hill Park.  Thinking of using some of the conspiracy theories and strange symbols in my own work, since it is very light-hearted and upbeat.  I will have to check out more Pynchon as well; Gravity's Rainbow is still sitting on my shelf.   Four out of five stars.

Zipper Mouth

Read from Monday, October 17th to Friday, October 21st.

Zipper Mouth, by Laurie Weeks, is the second of the books for my monthly book club from the Rumpus.  I enjoyed Zipper Mouth much more than Show Up, Look Good, even though they were both about similar subjects; a girl trying to make it in New York City. She is a deeply interesting protagonist.  Heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol, she works in various temp jobs while she struggles with a strong infatuation with a straight woman (she is a lesbian).  Late nights in clubs, letters to dead celebrities as if they were her best friends, apology letters to her real friends, a homeless woman spending the night on her couch, these are some of the adventures she goes through. 

There is not a traditional plot structure, and the sequences of time often are blurred.  She does not end up with her straight friend, although she often leads her on into thinking that she might.  The prose is beautiful, and it reads like one long high, and the sentences flow naturally into one another. 

The protagonist is a complete mess, but she is very sympathetic and human, someone we all wish we were friends with, although from a slight distance.  I did not get a chance to participate in the online discussion unfortunately because of work.  I would have liked to talk with Laurie Weeks.  It is a quick, brief review, because it has been awhile since I read the book.  Unfortunately I have been busy with other projects so my time for reading has suffered dramatically.  However, I highly recommend checking out the book.  Four out of five stars.

Infinite Jest

Read from Tuesday, September 20th to Tuesday, October 11th.

Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace, is hands down the most ambitious book I have ever read.  Wallace is a pure genius, and he manages to create an entire futuristic, dystopian world so thoroughly convincing, that it is hard to think I am not still living in it.  It took me about three weeks or so to finish this book, and I really rushed through it, but it was about 1000 pages, but a couple hundred of tiny footnotes that you have to keep checking in the back of the book.  And once I finished the book, I started working on my own writing project, so I haven't had much free time to read new books or update the blog.

Where to begin?  Infinite Jest's main theme is about the importance of entertainment to a society.  It is comical, but dark comedy, and often very strange.  All the characters are dysfunctional in some way, and need something as a crutch.  For many characters, it is drugs and alcohol.  But it could also be a tennis academy and the rigid structure.  Another stays entertained by seducing women, and another by creating mind-bending movies.  The story centers around the Incandenza family.  Hal, arguably the main character, is a 17 year old star at Enfield Tennis Academy, which his father, James (or Himself), founded.  His brother Mario is autistic and deformed, brother Orin a professional football punter in Arizona, and Mother April currently the headmistress of the Academy.  James killed himself with his head in a microwave a few years before the action takes place.  He was an avant garde filmmaker who had just completed "The Entertainment" or "Infinite Jest," a movie so compelling and entertaining, that anyone who gets caught watching it will go into a trance and only be satisfied while watching the movie on repeat, never eating or drinking or sleeping, until they soon die.  The movie becomes a weapon of mass destruction, that a Quebec Terrorist group, the ATF, tries to find in order to force the U.S. government to allow their separation.

The story takes place in the near future, in which the U.S., Canada and Mexico merged into one country, O.N.A.N.  To earn money, each year is leased to a company to advertise, like the Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment.  Also, due to a pollution problem, most of Northern New England  was turned into a giant garbage dump, called the Concavity or the Convexity.  Quebec, after trying to separate from Canada, now aims to separate from O.N.A.N, so the ATF, which is made up of men in wheelchairs that lost their legs jumping away from trains, resort to terrorist actions.

At the bottom of the hill from ETA is the Ennet Halfway House, where Don Gately is a counselor.  Don is a reformed Demerol addict who counsels other addicts, sometimes unsuccessfully.  Towards the end, he is shot trying to protect his residents, and he struggles in the hospital to resist the urges to take the morphine for the pain.  He is visited by the ghost of Himself.  Gately also develops a relationship with Joelle Van Dyne, Orin's former girlfriend and the star of Infinite Jest the movie.  She wears a veil so no one can see her perfect face.

Much of the action takes place at ETA and the Ennet House.  There are short passages that sometimes skip around chronologically and follow different characters at a time.  It was tricky to follow at first, since it was tough to figure out how the years related to one another, but eventually the storyline emerged.  An ATF Remy Marafe infiltrates the Ennet House looking for the tape, but he is really a double agent, working for the U.S. government.  Hal struggles to break his addiction from marijuana after he and other teammates are threatened with urine testing, so he seeks help at the halfway house.  There are many other students at the school and residents at the halfway house, and nearly all of them are painstakingly detailed.

There is no discernible ending to the story, which is frustrating, but also fits in with the theme.  It is unclear whether or not the ATF gets ahold of the Infinite Jest, but the next year Hal is applying to college in Arizona, and he cannot seem to speak coherently, an ending that is difficult to interpret.  Wallace has fun playing with all the characters, as well our concept of a traditional story and novel structure.  It is really enjoyable if you just decide to go along with all the strange side-trips and backstories that he throws at you.  I also highly recommend reading all the endnotes as soon as they are presented.  It is a break in the action, but also a continuation of the story.  Some endnotes go on for many pages.  There is also a complete filmography of all the movies made by James Incandenza.

Infinite Jest is an amazing book, and I regret I cannot delve into the depths of the story any deeper.  I expect I will take another read of this book at some point in my life, expecting that there are many things I missed the first time through.  As I said, I am working on my own writing project now, and I am trying to incorporate some of the style of Wallace in my own work, like the fantastic stories and character details and the humor, (although right now it sounds similar to A Confederacy of Dunces).  Go take a month and read Infinite Jest, you will not regret it.  Four and a half out of five stars.