Traveling with the Chums of Chance

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I’ve been reading Thomas Pynchon’s latest novel, Against the Day. What’s it about? Who knows? It’s Pynchon. He’s one of those obscure, confusing, enthralling, overwhelming novelists who creates such unique worlds in his works that reading them is much more complex than living life. Reading Pynchon is a journey through tales of strangeness, tinged with references to events, places, people and things most unexpected. It requires help and clarification, assistance and elucidation. But it’s a heck of a ride.I’m currently about a third of the way through, and it’s a very intriguing book. Like all of Pynchon’s novels, it is dense, full of references to obscure events and ideas. With the two sites I mentioned earlier (the wiki and the blog), I’m able to follow, but I’m augmenting that with a (to some) unique way of approaching the book.

I start by reading a section of the book, and, at the same time, check the AtD Wiki for info, and add things that I’ve spotted. I then read the blog, and the comments. Finally, I listen to the same section from an audiobook (available from iTunes for $24, or from Audible.com for a bit more, though if you have a subscription with Audible, it’s just one credit. This audiobook is extremely well read, and the narrator, Dick Hill, does wonders with the voices of the different characters. I find that reading/listening in this way gives me two perspectives about the book. After a first read, when some of the characters and events are new, hearing them read reinforces the insights that I’ve gotten from reading the comments here on the blog. I wouldn’t recommend this to everyone, but it is certainly a novel way to read a novel, if you have time. (The audiobook is 53 1/2 hours long, or about 3 minutes per page.)

I’ll post some more here as I make further progress.