It’s Week 12 and I can literally feel the back of the book in my hands when I’m reading. That’s how close to the end we are. By my admittedly rough and unreliable calculations, just 4 weeks remain. Der Jinkeys!
Enough of us marchers have fallen a little bit behind that I think this would be a good time for a demi-catch-up week. Instead of tackling the usual 50, let’s target around 36 pages, which will take us all the way to the end of the Zone and the start of Part 4. Next week: See you at page 616 (p/v), which rumor has it “is done on paper….”
I’m not sure where I am in reference to where we’re supposed to be. My big library copy was repossessed, and I’m stuck again with the crappy paperback & tiny type. This whole area seems to have a lot less Slothy & more out & out explication of the cosmic forces. It’s almost as if the time since the Anubis the book is spending more time in some sort of cosmic dream world where the boundaries of life, death, dreams, and reality are fluid. (Yet by contrast Slothy’s now running around dressed as an archetypal pig. Perhaps he represents us all wallowing in the filth of materiality.)
I like the idea of Orpheus, but he keeps running into damaged Eurydices that he can’t be bothered to reclaim from death. Pokler would like to reclaim his Ilse, I think, more than Slothrop Bianca.
Thank goshness for the various web explications, otherwise I would’ve been totally lost in the Pirate Prentice section. Some people claim it’s a dream, others a real joint mental state. Does anyone in our group have the definitive answer?
The other thing that’s starting to strike me more & more is the reintroduction of the people we left back in England. I just hope in the reading this time I have some grasp of what the hell happens to Slothy, even if he just wansders as a bum around East Germany, or goes home & raises 2.5 children.
It’s a testament to how much the Zone has twisted my mind that, from the first moment it appeared, I was pretty sure that Slothrop was going to screw that pig.
It’s a further testament that I was disappointed when he didn’t. Although the thought certainly crossed his mind, which in the Zone counts just as much as actually doing it.
And yes, I can see what happens when you connect the dots on all that, and yes, I am ashamed.
I’ve been having visions of Mr. P sitting with two flashing knitting needles, strands from threads from many different spools of yarn trailing all around him as he knits, knits his spider web together. Finally the Bland strand has been reincorporated back into the web. p588-591, awesome! “Lucky Bland, to be free of it.”
the cover came off my copy today as I picked it up off the passenger seat of my car. and it’s like waking up and finding out that all my fingernails were removed overnight and placed neatly in a row of 10 by my pillow.
I’m not sure where I am in reference to where we’re supposed to be. My big library copy was repossessed, and I’m stuck again with the crappy paperback & tiny type. This whole area seems to have a lot less Slothy & more out & out explication of the cosmic forces. It’s almost as if the time since the Anubis the book is spending more time in some sort of cosmic dream world where the boundaries of life, death, dreams, and reality are fluid. (Yet by contrast Slothy’s now running around dressed as an archetypal pig. Perhaps he represents us all wallowing in the filth of materiality.)
I like the idea of Orpheus, but he keeps running into damaged Eurydices that he can’t be bothered to reclaim from death. Pokler would like to reclaim his Ilse, I think, more than Slothrop Bianca.
Thank goshness for the various web explications, otherwise I would’ve been totally lost in the Pirate Prentice section. Some people claim it’s a dream, others a real joint mental state. Does anyone in our group have the definitive answer?
The other thing that’s starting to strike me more & more is the reintroduction of the people we left back in England. I just hope in the reading this time I have some grasp of what the hell happens to Slothy, even if he just wansders as a bum around East Germany, or goes home & raises 2.5 children.
It’s a testament to how much the Zone has twisted my mind that, from the first moment it appeared, I was pretty sure that Slothrop was going to screw that pig.
It’s a further testament that I was disappointed when he didn’t. Although the thought certainly crossed his mind, which in the Zone counts just as much as actually doing it.
And yes, I can see what happens when you connect the dots on all that, and yes, I am ashamed.
I’ve been having visions of Mr. P sitting with two flashing knitting needles, strands from threads from many different spools of yarn trailing all around him as he knits, knits his spider web together. Finally the Bland strand has been reincorporated back into the web. p588-591, awesome! “Lucky Bland, to be free of it.”
I was wondering if this would be a good time to annouce that I’m finally all caught up. No? Alrighty then.
the cover came off my copy today as I picked it up off the passenger seat of my car. and it’s like waking up and finding out that all my fingernails were removed overnight and placed neatly in a row of 10 by my pillow.