Game Of Soldiers
Sep. 22nd, 2022 08:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo I halted at the foot at the five page paragraph and thought, "I'm going to have to gather my resources to tackle this". That was a week or two back and I'm still gathering them. Since I laid Gravity's Rainbow aside I've read a couple of Ian Rankins and have laid in a stock of early Simenons. Something in me is craving murder mystery.
When I was young I was tough-minded about reading books through to the end. That was because
(a) I didn't trust my own taste
(b) I was reading not so much for pleasure but also to educate myself
(c) I had all the time in the world.
Today these conditions no longer apply- or apply with diminished force.
Another thing is I caught Pynchon out. There he was oppressing us with the enormousness of his enormous brain and I found he was under the impression that "evensong", "compline" and "vespers" were synonyms for the same evening service. Also he'd gone and placed a ruined abbey on the cliffs outside Brighton when any fule kno that the only ruined abbey on a cliff is in Yorkshire. "So," I thought, "I'm suffering myself to be schooled by someone who knows less than I do. Sod this for a game of soldiers..."
When I was young I was tough-minded about reading books through to the end. That was because
(a) I didn't trust my own taste
(b) I was reading not so much for pleasure but also to educate myself
(c) I had all the time in the world.
Today these conditions no longer apply- or apply with diminished force.
Another thing is I caught Pynchon out. There he was oppressing us with the enormousness of his enormous brain and I found he was under the impression that "evensong", "compline" and "vespers" were synonyms for the same evening service. Also he'd gone and placed a ruined abbey on the cliffs outside Brighton when any fule kno that the only ruined abbey on a cliff is in Yorkshire. "So," I thought, "I'm suffering myself to be schooled by someone who knows less than I do. Sod this for a game of soldiers..."
