Posts by Creon Upton
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Thomas Pynchon it is not.
Interestingly, Pynchon has been known to make extremely elaborate use of others' work, but in a genuinely imaginative way. Eg the North Africa bits in V apparently owe a lot to an old Baedeker he'd picked up; and, equally apparently, heaps of the historical and rocket-science detail in Gravity's Rainbow can be traced to a couple of books he kept at his side during writing. But what he did with that material was, like, creative.
Note the "apparently"s above: these are my somewhat vague memories from things I've read.
And a bit of Mason & Dixon is lifted almost entirely unaltered from Charles Mason's journal, but it is credited as such by the narrator. Wow: no need for a footnote, just, um, prose.
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surely doused
Surely.
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And it does wipe clean.
You better bloody believe it does, Baby.
Listen. After Dr David dowsed it in whatever fluids and solids Bob-the-Toddler could discharge over a 24-hour period (with the aid of emetics I should add), they flicked a dishcloth over it and brought that shiny-faced sucker round to mine to be drenched in whatever more, ahm, adult forms of filth we could find lying around the place. Then we left it in the sun for a season and, wouldn't you know it? Clean as a whistle in the wake of merely a damp, warm rag.
It was a real thrill to be involved.
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I agree with Craig.
Attacking counsel for doing what they're able and required to do is absurd.
But that's not to say that a law creating the possibility of this defence doesn't need examining.
Nor is it to deny the unpleasant irony that not-guilty pleas tend to put victims and/or their families through additional torment. But that does seem to be the system we're stuck with.
Looked at coolly, you've got to admit she did a good job given what she had to work with - and yes, the best way to convince the jury of the personality disorder argument was to expose them ad nauseum to that disorder in action. Thankfully they didn't go for what would amount to the "I'm an inherently evil creep and we sometimes can't help doing this kind of thing" argument, but the fact that I at least was slightly nervous about their decision testifies to a pretty effective job done by Ablett-Kerr.
The defence may have been his idea, but the strategy was hers: that'd be my guess.
(And she's probably, when you think about it, ok about being eyeballed by the irate while doing the shopping - comes with the job.)
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It is this simple: you cannot grow bananas in London, Jaguar did not make a car like that before the end of the war and Pynchon does not understand the English class system.
And any loser could paint like Mondrian.
It is our weakness for narrative and realism that creates churlish readers and makes most novels dull.
Anyone who feels like a failure because they can't finish Gravity's Rainbow is lacking perspective.
But anyone who feels Gravity's Rainbow is a failure because they can't finish it is lacking more.
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Pamela is not too tough to get to end of. It's quite charming really. She's a plucky young thing.
Clarissa is probably more interesting, but it really is long; I paused indefinitely at about p. 300.
__I tried Tristram Shandy once, managed a page or three.__
You guys are killing me here, you really are.
If anybody needs me, I'll be in the bathroom, crying.
I'm with Giovanni here. Funniest novel ever. Well, close enough.
As to the question at hand: White Teeth is the worst "good" novel I've read in a while. What a shocker. Genuinely bad on just about every count. A disaster. A piece of shit. Unmitigated crap.
The Secret History is too, really, but I kind of admire the way Tartt does such a good job of disguising how bad it is.
As for Pynchon knockers: you don't know what you're talking about.
Mason & Dixon and Gravity's Rainbow are equally, but quite differently, two of the best novels ever.
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I find Phil Goff's track record in Justice of readiness to toss my civil liberties aside quite worrying. He strikes me as a classic authoritarian.
Agreed. And a sneaky populist to boot. Give me a from-the-rooftops populist any day: at least you know where you stand.
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Bet you a beer it isn't.
I'm with Emma on that.
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Mr Haywood here
Ahem: "Dr" thank you.
Thais put ice in beer as a matter of course.
Agreed Shep: Pomeroys is alright. Falls down on the TV/sport factor (but Haywood's just being a snob anyway: nothing like settling down to five days of test cricket in front of the Dux's big screen -- Jesus, that's what doing postgraduate study is for.)
And music at Pomeroys comes from a dukebox: now, the thing there is that there's always an identifiable culprit, which makes even terrible music at least a curiosity and talking point.
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I love Reeves and Mortimer, especially because they'd never let the possibility of complete skit-flop get in the way of their exploring the outer reaches of absurdity.
And absurdity is at the heart of all this brilliant stuff.
Eg, off the album I Will Cure You, Vic crooning this number, "Empty Kennel":
He was a friend and a hairy companion,
Two big brown eyes just a starin’ at the sun,
his tail would wag in the summer breeze,
and gently caress my cheek.The swimming pool attendant couldn’t save him,
that old fella he weighed too much,
he waved goodbye as he sank out of sight,
like a crab in a workman’s lavvy.[Spoken]: Ah, what a gay old alsation he was,
he was like a brother to me,
I remember he was so portly his saddle wouldn’t fit properly
and I had to use an old mattress.
Sometimes on warm summers evenings I used to get into
the kennel with him and we’d sip hot water
and examine his collection of Nazi regalia for hours.But now that old kennel is empty,
but I might use it for storing engine parts,
or I’ll block up the hole,
and turn it upside down, and use it as a coracle.But for now I’m gonna use it for private reasons,
at midnight when the moon is full,
and tonight I’d like to use it with you,
and you,
and you,
and you,
and you,
in fact, all of yous