Reading Notes #2

I'm about a fifth of the way through Against the Day, and I'm realizing that this is a conventional big novel--one theme, a limited cast (large, but limited in the sense that the major cast members are followed episodically through time and place), plots that fold out linearly--start at Point A, go to Point B. And I'm a bit disappointed, I guess. On the one hand, it's been over 30 years since Gravity's Rainbow was published and it's a safe bet that overall Against the Day will be read under far less influence of soft drugs, but still. If I'm going to go along with over a thousand pages about labor history and why labor and socialism are right and good--and, to be clear, I agree with the sentiment--I want weird-tasting wine gums and sexually aggressive cephalopods along the way. And I'm not really getting them. What happened to World's Fairs that become, well, whiter toward their centers (the "well" there makes the sentence for me) and Alaskan exhibits with special reindeer dances? Is the turn of the century American West so very dire for the common man that there's no absurd humor to be had? For an author whose major work is about the ending of World War II and the big bomb, is that even possible? Even the perfect set-ups that are here--say, English tourists on an Oscar Wilde tour of the West--are just left hanging, unplayed-with. It's as if somewhere around the 9/11 scenes, all the goofiness went away and we're left with nice moments that don't get explored for their absurdity and humor--or, on the other hand, for the anger behind them. We've got tasteful and well-done; I miss the flashy, showy stuff that doesn't always work but when it does, is magic.