The loneliness of streets; songs; anarchism; Elvis; yo-yos; Rachel Owlglass; Profane working at the restaurant; the MG; not so much unrequited as unfulfilled love; lonely New Year's Eves; the scene on theSquaducci; people turning into things.... (tbc.)
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 5 March 2004 21:11 (twenty years ago) link
That depends on what you want from it. I would say just let the whole storming, complex, brilliant, hilarious, disturbing, puzzling, delightful mix wash over you. Enjoy the ride, then go back and look at things. Don't try to understand it all as you go along.
One of my favourite books, I think made for having fun with as you read, rather than analysing.
And yes, all of Jerry's things are in there, and many, many more.
Aligators. Extreme prosthetics. A siege that will leave you as thirsty as the besieged. The machine gunner on the salad bar. Rachel Owlglass. Obsession. Pig Bodine!!!!
I saw it as the most phantasmagorical, boyuant, grittiest, rollickingest soap opera ever, and boy did it deliver.
― PuzzleMonkey, Saturday, 6 March 2004 11:17 (twenty years ago) link
one year passes...
this is probably of no help to the original poster now, but who knows.
when i reread v. i noticed a couple of things which i did not know whether i had noticed enough the first time around; i figured that if i had noticed them better then, i would have remembered them better instead of feeling as if i were discovering them the second time around. but who knows.
1. that the sections not having to do directly with the whole sick crew / profane etc. storyline are generally connected to that storyline by way of what stencil finds out during his investigations; and these sections are told (mostly) by stencil or otherwise contaminated by him
2. that the styles of these sections, especially, tends to be some kind of parody or satire or pastiche or etc. that varies to suit the subjects, themes, and mode of access to the stories contained within (via stencil)
i think i found it tempting to follow the plot by confusing some of the players in some of the stencilized chapters, especially earlier on, for players in other stencilized chapters (and i'm not just talking about v. herself), at the times when the particular way by which stencil came about the story he retells in a chapter slipped my mind. a mistake, but a tempting one.
i'm terrible at reading thematically but the next time i read it i would pay much more careful attention to all the women; they're thrown into the whole people-becoming-objects theme but i tend to be distracted by that theme in its other aspects enough that i neglect to notice how interrelated the theme is with the male perspective on gender.
― Josh (Josh), Monday, 25 April 2005 07:09 (nineteen years ago) link
seventeen years pass...