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Today it begins — our first few steps on “The Gravity’s Rainbow Deathmarch.” And I will admit the obvious — that I’m a little intimidated by this old book. But I can share this as well: the last two days, I went off on a little scouting mission — read the first few pages — read them aloud to my better half, in fact, while she tried to sleep. And dang if they weren’t entertaining. At least to me. I had no idea there were so many ways to prepare a banana.
Let’s make the target for this week a touch shy of 50 pages — we’ll make camp at page 47 and the line “time for home.” [update: this is page 54 in the Bantam edition]
If any of youse have any other words orf wisdom regarding the first handful of pages, or good natured advice for your fellow marchers, please use this entry as an open thread fer shoutin’ out.
Thanks and gulp and see you next Tuesday and…here we go,
-Cecil
(For those hearing about this for the first time, you can find all the details — the gameplan, the prizes, the whole sheebang, by going to “The Gravity’s Rainbow Deathmarch” category page. In short, around 20-30 of us are going to try to read this thing in roughly 50 page chunks/week. And for them that make it through and drop a comment here most weeks, there will be glory, and yes, the possibility of a free Pat Benatar CD and/or a mug. All are welcome — Gravity’s Rainbow loves company.)

27 people have now signed up for the Deathmarch. And I think it’s safe to say that this little idea has now morphed from an amusing notion into a full-fledged movement — a movement that may well change the way people think about reading books and talking about them on blogs forever.
Here’s the rough plan: Tuesday will be GRDM day here on cecilvortex.com. For the next couple of weeks, that will mean short updates as folks holidize, stretch their legs, wash their socks, that sort of thing. But starting on the morning of Jan. 4, we’ll have a post indicating how far we aim to travel on the first week. Each week’s journey will be roughly 50 pages. Since editions may vary and numbers can’t be trusted, the marker will be “read up to X” rather than “read to page Y.”
Starting on the 11th I’ll post short entries here every Tuesday morning that will be meant as open threads — a spot to drop comments. I’m encouraging everyone to chime in, if only with “oh my lord, this is awful, what have I done?” More than anything, this is a GR support group.
Although a paragraph or three of pithy analysis will always be welcome, I’m going to discourage folks from giving in to old habits and churning out a 6-page paper each week. (If 27 people wrote 6 pages each week of the GRDM we’d end up with 2,430 pages of critical analysis. And that, I’m pretty sure, would make my head blow up.)
Prizes? Oh yes, there will be prizes. More on that next week….
It’s not to late to sign yourself (or several loved ones) up for the march. All are welcome. Just add a comment to this link, or drop me an email.
Merry Tuesday and watch the skies, -Cecil