A relentless experience throughout.



Might be my favorite Matthew Reilly book; definitely my favorite out of the Jack West Jr. series.

I'm currently reading 'The Colour of Magic' by Terry Pratchett because I want to read all the Discworld novels.

I recently finished Hard Boiled Wonderland by Murkami and I'm starting Libra by Dellilo next


-Vader

Vader182 wrote:I recently finished Hard Boiled Wonderland by Murkami and I'm starting Libra by Dellilo next


-Vader

Now how was that? planning to read it.

also Pynchon's Vineland was lit

slevin_77 wrote:

Vader182 wrote:I recently finished Hard Boiled Wonderland by Murkami and I'm starting Libra by Dellilo next


-Vader

Now how was that? planning to read it.

also Pynchon's Vineland was lit

Let down. Makes the critical error of beginning with a fascinating, totally surreal and almost spellbinding first third before getting increasingly less interesting both thematically and in story. The typical Murakami weirdness dissolves in favor of being disappointingly literal. Least favorite Murakami of the 3 I've read, and Wind Up Bird is in my top 5 books of all time.

Also, I'm taking the Pynchon dive soon. Crying Lot's dizzying opaqueness made it a trying and often confounding experience and not always in the best way. It wasn't a book I fell in love with while reading it immediately, like, say, Blood Meridian or Underworld's famous opening chapter or Infinite Jest. But I plan to do Gravity's Rainbow soon. I'm actually trying to rope my friends into doing a bookclub for GR but people are googling what it is and spazz. Pussies.


-Vader

Vader182 wrote:

slevin_77 wrote:

Vader182 wrote:I recently finished Hard Boiled Wonderland by Murkami and I'm starting Libra by Dellilo next


-Vader

Now how was that? planning to read it.

also Pynchon's Vineland was lit

Let down. Makes the critical error of beginning with a fascinating, totally surreal and almost spellbinding first third before getting increasingly less interesting both thematically and in story. The typical Murakami weirdness dissolves in favor of being disappointingly literal. Least favorite Murakami of the 3 I've read, and Wind Up Bird is in my top 5 books of all time.

Also, I'm taking the Pynchon dive soon. Crying Lot's dizzying opaqueness made it a trying and often confounding experience and not always in the best way. It wasn't a book I fell in love with while reading it immediately, like, say, Blood Meridian or Underworld's famous opening chapter or Infinite Jest. But I plan to do Gravity's Rainbow soon. I'm actually trying to rope my friends into doing a bookclub for GR but people are googling what it is and spazz. Pussies.


-Vader

That's depressing. I read a good bit of the beginning of Hard Boiled and really enjoyed how out of left field it was. Like Kurosawa and Lynch had a baby in the literary form. I put it down and sorta forgot about it over time because I never finish anything these days.

I still haven't finished Crime and Punishment. I've been stuck about halfway through it for over a year. The first half is some of the best work that I've ever read, it sucks you right in. But then it sort of devolves into the Dostoyevsky meme of him talking at you at length for pages on end and forgetting theres a story to be told.

Let down. Makes the critical error of beginning with a fascinating, totally surreal and almost spellbinding first third before getting increasingly less interesting both thematically and in story. The typical Murakami weirdness dissolves in favor of being disappointingly literal. Least favorite Murakami of the 3 I've read, and Wind Up Bird is in my top 5 books of all time.

Sad!

Also, I'm taking the Pynchon dive soon. Crying Lot's dizzying opaqueness made it a trying and often confounding experience and not always in the best way. It wasn't a book I fell in love with while reading it immediately, like, say, Blood Meridian or Underworld's famous opening chapter or Infinite Jest. But I plan to do Gravity's Rainbow soon. I'm actually trying to rope my friends into doing a bookclub for GR but people are googling what it is and spazz. Pussies.

Dizzyng opaqueness and confounding are all over Pynchon's work, and in Gravity's Rainbow, that to the nth degree. The things is... that is so plotless, loose and zany that you're not waiting for any forward momentum, being character or "plot" wise; Infinite Jest-y, for a reductive example. If you want less of a hazardous dive, I'll say go with Vineland, even though you could have the same trouble with crying lot (it goes back and forward in a total unapologetic fashion) it's his second shortest, the most endearing, a helluva bonkers climax, and you'll immediately recognize it's influence on flicks like Big Lebowski, and above all, Kill Bill.

I recently read Drive by James Sallis.

This is the book the movies starring Ryan Gosling was based on.

I really like the atmosphere of the book and I loved how moody it was. The novel was really hard to follow because it kept switching between present day and the past. And it was hard to keep track of all the side characters too at times.

Overall it's a nice little book. It's just confusing.

On the subject of Pynchon, I have a couple of Pynchon books on my shelf! Definitely planning on reading them next year for sure!