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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThis Quote from Gravity's Rainbow sums up how I feel about Conservatives...
And how it sometimes feels like we are fighting a losing battle. Even though I know we're winning.
"I would set you free, if I knew how. But it isn't free out here. All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few, who are the loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least free of all. I can't even give you hope that it will be different someday--that They'll come out, and forget death, and lose Their technology's elaborate terror, and stop using every other form of life without mercy to keep what haunts men down to a tolerable level--and be like you instead, simply here, simply alive..."
I read this and cried.
Iris
(15,632 posts)defacto7
(13,485 posts)Interesting man Tim. Miss him.
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)defacto7
(13,485 posts)I have an author signed copy of the book which is also signed and given to me by Timothy Leary. Have never known Mr. Pynchon.
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)progressoid
(49,827 posts)I started it a few decades ago.
Alas...
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)Because it's the craziest, most complex, disturbing book I've ever read. The first time took me about 2 months. I'm now reading it again and have already spent 2 months on the first 300 pages.
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)But I will. Some of the funniest, smartest & coolest people I've met LOVE it. Maybe I should do what I did in college with a semester-long course on Ulysses. Blew it off until the night before the paper was due, then speed-read it. I found Ulysses to be one of the funniest damn things I've ever read. As a side note, I received an A. The professor said I captured Joyce's sense of random humor and his underlying thesis that language is woefully ineffective at describing feelings. 'Thought is the thought of thought'. Haha!
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)I'm still trying to build up the courage to read Ulysses.
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)Thanks for sharing it here. While it is a plague, yes we are winning. But the plague is always there. I find inspiration in the doctor in Camus' The Plague, who knows the plague exists, yet still enjoys riding his bicycle into town every day to treat people. He finds joy in that. In my experience, we on the left have a lot of problems but I take some small comfort in knowing we experience joy that some of the seemingly soulless elite never seem to feel, or rarely express.
Dragonbreathp9d
(2,542 posts)I'm about half way through
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)Dragonbreathp9d
(2,542 posts)It was recommended by a friend and it has been a long time since I have read something with such beautiful prose and poignant imagery
reformist2
(9,841 posts)Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)It's one of Pynchon's many digressions. And it's amazing how a speech for rats is so universal.
reformist2
(9,841 posts)Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)Without it, you'll be pulling your hair out.
Response to Gravitycollapse (Original post)
april rain Message auto-removed
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)Reading it requires patience and the willingness to read a passage and move on even if you don't fully understand what happened. The book lends itself to multiple reads. And it's almost a must to use the companion reader in order to understand all of Pynchon's allusions.
redqueen
(115,096 posts)I started Mason & Dixon but stopped halfway through. I need to finish it and get around to GR.
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)It's next on my list after I finish my second read of GR.
A lot of people recommended reading The Crying of Lot 49 if his bigger novels are too intimidating. I own 49 but have never gotten around to reading it.