What are You Reading Now?
- Thread starter jpmcwjr
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DFW was an excellent author. I actually find his posthumously published novel "The Pale King" to be both his best work for a beginner and also possibly his best overall. It's such a shame that he never managed to finish it.
Quite a challenging introduction to postmodernism, to say the least. I read close to half the book (500 pages or so) and put it down. While the book contained some inciteful observations and a fair amount of dark humor, it was too annoying for me, having to scroll back and forth to read the numerous endnotes, not to mention the footnotes to the endnotes. Perhaps I’ll go back someday and give it another try. Good luck.
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Yeah, a few times I will read the endnotes then continue to the footnotes. "Really, dude?" Haha.
I'm going on vacation tomorrow for a week. Looking forward to some quiet reading time.
Maybe I'll try some Pynchon after this one. Well, after some fun horror.
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If you do give Pynchon a try, Vineland and Inherent Vice, while not his greatest novels, are good starters as they are probably his most accessible ones. They will both give you a taste of his writing style before venturing into his more abstruse novels like Gravity’s Rainbow, etc.
I'm well in to The Company, a fictional history of the CIA, and finding it to be an excellent read so far. (I am listening to the audiobook version.) We're up to the Bay of Pigs in the narrative, and I sure hope it works out!
Ha, it's funny how different things work for different people. The footnotes and endnotes were my favorite part of the book. Also, maybe coincidentally or maybe not, I really don't like Pynchon.
I can’t say that the endnotes and footnotes were necessarily uninspiring or devoid of interest, but I prefer to read books all the way through, page by page. Having to flip back and forth to read the endnotes and footnotes made reading the novel a cumbersome chore for me.
I finally read this two years ago. A newer translation by Katz. I really liked it. His translation of The Brothers Karamazov is next on the list.
I love DFW and still found this difficult. It’s part of the point though, I think. We are supposed to be frustrated. Just like his pale King is meant to be boring as a way of mirroring the state of his protagonist. His essays are where he really shines, and they serve as a kind of a primer on how to read the novels.
Lost count of how many times I’ve read this. Here we go again. All time favorite. 
A couple from the library:
"The Gone World" — Inception meets True Detective in this science-fiction thriller of spellbinding tension and staggering scope that follows a special agent into a savage murder case with grave implications for the fate of mankind....
"The Martians" — Long before NASA began contemplating a visit to our neighboring world, a turn-of-the-century Mars craze invaded the public’s imagination, here thrillingly retold in David Baron’s The Martians.
"The Gone World" — Inception meets True Detective in this science-fiction thriller of spellbinding tension and staggering scope that follows a special agent into a savage murder case with grave implications for the fate of mankind....
"The Martians" — Long before NASA began contemplating a visit to our neighboring world, a turn-of-the-century Mars craze invaded the public’s imagination, here thrillingly retold in David Baron’s The Martians.
