I visited the 9/11 museum last time I was in NYC last year. Hadn't been to the city in about 20 years.
Nothing bothered me more than the photos of eye witnesses at the entrance. Just close ups of them from old video footage and their facial reactions. The shock and terror in their faces...
It brought me to tears and affected me in a way nothing else in the museum did .
I dont even know if I could handle the visit all that well. I was surprised to learn, at rhe end of that book, that there's a private room reserved for families of the victims. I think there's an urn inside with varied remains?
Glad to hear it hit you the way it was meant to, though. I havent heard any testimony from xillennials, I dont think, who weren't alive to follow it on TV, but id be interested to know how they take it all in.
I've read GR twice (once in college, once a couple of years ago), and it was better a couple of years ago. In college I read it with the companion thing that explained a lot of the references, summarized the plot, and I think that was fine. I read it without the companion the second time (I think? I don't totally remember) and just...skipped parts I didn't like, and that worked better. I wanted to understand it too much the first time.
You're right to connect it to the death drive and all of this morbid stuff. It's a funny book that's all about how western civilization wants to kill itself. It feels much more pessimistic than his later stuff. I think Mason and Dixon is up your alley. It was recommended to me by this insanely burned out urban school teacher when I was 22. I was a baby teacher and I think we were talking about what we were reading and I mentioned I was going back to Lot 49 after reading GR in college and he just got this big smile on his face because I don't think ANY of the other teachers in our building were reading those kind of books and he asked if I'd read M&D and I said no, only GR and Lot 49, and he told me I had to read all of them and come back to him, but M&D was his favorite one. And I agree with him!
Anyway, a lot GR seems super Freudian in retrospect, especially influenced by "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" and this whole idea of the death drive. A lot of this post feels death-drivey too---not a bad thing, just interesting! The idea of being disgusted and then internalizing that into this feeling of wanting to destroy yourself.
I hadnt carried away that last element youre talking about, regarding self-destruction, but that's a interesting way to think about it. Slothrop being followed by death in all his sexual conquesting...
And I'm 100% with you on M&D, of which I've still not read the last 200 pages (it was my companion during a 6-day post-hurricane blackout and when the power came on I drifted...). By comparison, I thought GR...we'll, had some kinda juvenile nihilism. Brilliant and above my head in a million ways, and it kept me on a steady course of laughing aloud every 5 or 7 pages, but there was a permeating feeling that the author really wanted to have power over me, and to know that he knew much more.
Kinda presumptuous, but I think biographers will find that the Pynchon most people really know and love is the guy who took shape after his son was born.
I'd never thought about it that way---when I was reading most of the corpus (Vineland through Inherent Vice) I had no idea that there was such a large gap between them and Rainbow. Actually, I had no idea until I just looked them up on Wikipedia. I thought he'd put out a new book every 10 years or so; turns out it's more like every 6-7 years with a ten year gap after Rainbow. Weird!
I so love finding the serious readers and writers online. Substack might yet become a dumpster fire, but with writing like this here, I’m in for the haul.
Thank you! It’s always a delight to hear someone say they got a chuckle but there’s an extra flash of relief/pride when someone tells me it stirred them a little.
This post made me very glad to have signed up for Substack. So interesting. Educational! But "DRIVERS DO NOT SIT"! Why not? Who are the couches for? If a lawyer came to visit a client living there, that's any different? Can the unsmiling concierge sit? "BATHROOM NOT FOR DRIVERS"!! Okay. I pee on the marble floor.
I’m glad you liked it! And yeah, there’s a pretty rampant/undisguised contempt for Uber Eats and DoorDash drivers when it comes to apartment/hotel staff — however, to their credit, when I worked at an Italian restaurant four years ago I remember delivery drivers making our youngest employees (the ones who worked the take-out desk) cry on multiple occasions. I didn’t like them either and it’s a bit of karma to now have the shoe on the other foot lol
Your toe-twisting first section prepared me for all the feelings I didn’t know were coming. I went to the 9/11 site on my last visit to NYC in October, and it was too much for me, especially with all the tourists taking selfies. Such bright writing here.
After trying Lot 49 and Gravity's Rainbow several times in my 20s and 30s, I finally did it in my 50s. Now I'm reading and rereading all of them. Against the Day is pretty amazing and looking forward to visiting it again.
Those chilly winds at height even in Miami…I remember those living in the now-demolished high-rise dorms at U of Miami Coral Gables as we went to drop stuff off the balcony from our 9th floor perch. We’d hear that sound as it hit and would inevitably squelch…and shudder a bit. One year a kid was doing drugs of some kind and decided he would rappel down the side of the building by tying a guitar cable to his bed. My friend Charles found and had to report the remains. He said it was awful.
I visited the 9/11 museum last time I was in NYC last year. Hadn't been to the city in about 20 years.
Nothing bothered me more than the photos of eye witnesses at the entrance. Just close ups of them from old video footage and their facial reactions. The shock and terror in their faces...
It brought me to tears and affected me in a way nothing else in the museum did .
I dont even know if I could handle the visit all that well. I was surprised to learn, at rhe end of that book, that there's a private room reserved for families of the victims. I think there's an urn inside with varied remains?
Glad to hear it hit you the way it was meant to, though. I havent heard any testimony from xillennials, I dont think, who weren't alive to follow it on TV, but id be interested to know how they take it all in.
I've read GR twice (once in college, once a couple of years ago), and it was better a couple of years ago. In college I read it with the companion thing that explained a lot of the references, summarized the plot, and I think that was fine. I read it without the companion the second time (I think? I don't totally remember) and just...skipped parts I didn't like, and that worked better. I wanted to understand it too much the first time.
You're right to connect it to the death drive and all of this morbid stuff. It's a funny book that's all about how western civilization wants to kill itself. It feels much more pessimistic than his later stuff. I think Mason and Dixon is up your alley. It was recommended to me by this insanely burned out urban school teacher when I was 22. I was a baby teacher and I think we were talking about what we were reading and I mentioned I was going back to Lot 49 after reading GR in college and he just got this big smile on his face because I don't think ANY of the other teachers in our building were reading those kind of books and he asked if I'd read M&D and I said no, only GR and Lot 49, and he told me I had to read all of them and come back to him, but M&D was his favorite one. And I agree with him!
Anyway, a lot GR seems super Freudian in retrospect, especially influenced by "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" and this whole idea of the death drive. A lot of this post feels death-drivey too---not a bad thing, just interesting! The idea of being disgusted and then internalizing that into this feeling of wanting to destroy yourself.
I hadnt carried away that last element youre talking about, regarding self-destruction, but that's a interesting way to think about it. Slothrop being followed by death in all his sexual conquesting...
And I'm 100% with you on M&D, of which I've still not read the last 200 pages (it was my companion during a 6-day post-hurricane blackout and when the power came on I drifted...). By comparison, I thought GR...we'll, had some kinda juvenile nihilism. Brilliant and above my head in a million ways, and it kept me on a steady course of laughing aloud every 5 or 7 pages, but there was a permeating feeling that the author really wanted to have power over me, and to know that he knew much more.
Kinda presumptuous, but I think biographers will find that the Pynchon most people really know and love is the guy who took shape after his son was born.
I'd never thought about it that way---when I was reading most of the corpus (Vineland through Inherent Vice) I had no idea that there was such a large gap between them and Rainbow. Actually, I had no idea until I just looked them up on Wikipedia. I thought he'd put out a new book every 10 years or so; turns out it's more like every 6-7 years with a ten year gap after Rainbow. Weird!
This is so fun to read. I love the elements and how they come together. What a hand you have at writing. Thanks for the free fling.
Thank YOU for taking the time to read the thing, let alone dish a compliment!
I so love finding the serious readers and writers online. Substack might yet become a dumpster fire, but with writing like this here, I’m in for the haul.
This has some great writing in it. Thank you. Love the numbered pieces.
Thank you so much, I appreciate that!
Excellent, moving piece. Really enjoyed it.
Thank you! It’s always a delight to hear someone say they got a chuckle but there’s an extra flash of relief/pride when someone tells me it stirred them a little.
This post made me very glad to have signed up for Substack. So interesting. Educational! But "DRIVERS DO NOT SIT"! Why not? Who are the couches for? If a lawyer came to visit a client living there, that's any different? Can the unsmiling concierge sit? "BATHROOM NOT FOR DRIVERS"!! Okay. I pee on the marble floor.
I’m glad you liked it! And yeah, there’s a pretty rampant/undisguised contempt for Uber Eats and DoorDash drivers when it comes to apartment/hotel staff — however, to their credit, when I worked at an Italian restaurant four years ago I remember delivery drivers making our youngest employees (the ones who worked the take-out desk) cry on multiple occasions. I didn’t like them either and it’s a bit of karma to now have the shoe on the other foot lol
Thanks, I enjoyed this a lot. Really well written.
Your toe-twisting first section prepared me for all the feelings I didn’t know were coming. I went to the 9/11 site on my last visit to NYC in October, and it was too much for me, especially with all the tourists taking selfies. Such bright writing here.
"But even if you make peace with the ethics of it you can find your albatross this way: the images you put in your head don’t go anywhere."
Shotgun suicide aftermath comes to mind. All because I was curious what "4chan" was...
Also, high recommend "The Falling Man" that was published in Esquire about one of the 9/11 jumpers: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a48031/the-falling-man-tom-junod/
After trying Lot 49 and Gravity's Rainbow several times in my 20s and 30s, I finally did it in my 50s. Now I'm reading and rereading all of them. Against the Day is pretty amazing and looking forward to visiting it again.
Number 5 made my soul ache, wonderful work
Those chilly winds at height even in Miami…I remember those living in the now-demolished high-rise dorms at U of Miami Coral Gables as we went to drop stuff off the balcony from our 9th floor perch. We’d hear that sound as it hit and would inevitably squelch…and shudder a bit. One year a kid was doing drugs of some kind and decided he would rappel down the side of the building by tying a guitar cable to his bed. My friend Charles found and had to report the remains. He said it was awful.