I started this four times. This time I got almost halfway through with a little help from “A Companion to Gravity’s Rainbow” (which was really very little help). I was clearly not having fun—many pages had to be skipped because, while they were masses of useless information, they were also totally lacking in narrative appeal. I decided that since there are over 700 books on the list I have not read, I would go back to something that is a little bit of fun. When I’ve finished the other 1000, I’ll come back to this again.

excerpt: “Slothrop is a little nervous, unaccustomed as he is to pigherofestivals. But Fritz is an old hand, and has thoughtfully brought along a glazed jug of some liquid brain damage flavored with dill and coriander and distilled, unless Haferschleim means something else, from oatmeal”.

i just bought this today so i haven’t gotten very far yet.

This wasn’t too terribly hard of a read, really. As soon as I dropped notions of trying to figure out what’s going on right away and just let it sort wash over me, everything went fairly smoothly. It seems like it’s more about evoking a mood than telling a story anyway. Like atmospheric music almost. I think it’s given me more of a sense of what the cold, relentless terror of living through years of WWII in Europe must have been like than anything else I’ve read to date. It’s really entropic and obfuscatory, but the wordplay, and the interspersed hilarious bits and passages of stark clarity made it more than worth the slog through the hazier parts. Definitely didn’t get even close to everything out of it that I could have, but I got through it ok, and will probably re-read it some day with a guide to see what else is there.

I don’t really have the time to read this thing right now, maybe next summer… but I purchased it anyway, because I’m afraid that Penguin is going to reprint it with their new, ugly design.

For the class—so far they like it.

this book was absolute hell to read but extremely rewarding when i finished it. i started reading it two years before i started college and it really took me a year to read it, as i finished it like the week before i got to college. although it’s difficult to start, once you get into the thick of this book and stop trying to force yourself to comprehend everything, it gets a lot easier to go through—but, of course, you will miss a lot. i plan to re-read it sometime soon, though last time i started i gave up a few pages into it.