Reading Notes #1

So I'm around 60 pages in and I'm struck by how much easier this is for me so far than Gravity's Rainbow was. It can't be that I'm a significantly better reader or that I've developed a better memory for character names. But I even remember random book-versus-reality questions that I'd like to follow up--for example, were the buildings at the Chicago Exhibition really made of I Can't Believe It's Not Marble? So I'm wondering whether Gravity's Rainbow functions like training wheels for Against the Day in the same way that V does, in turn, for Gravity's Rainbow, or whether Pynchon is intentionally marking characters better (who we need to keep track of, who X is when X reappears)--or what.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to decide what to do with this blog. I want the discipline of writing every day, but every day writing about a book? Maybe not. And then again, looking up every random weird word or might-be-historical event would probably be unnecessary, since the book's been out for several years and there's a wiki that I think must answer most questions. But then again again, when I was reading Gravity's Rainbow it took me what seemed like hours to get a definitive answer about what "reet pleats," which were mentioned in passing, are. (The whole phrase was something like "zoot suit with reet pleats." I already knew what a zoot suit is, but two online Pynchon references and an online fashion dictionary and a hardcopy fashion dictionary all took me nowhere closer to reet pleats--which, just for the record, are pleats that are cool or snappy or any other slangy word generally meaning "good," and not, as I assumed, any particular style of pleat like inverted or Fortuny.)

Last note for today, I was amused to see Frederick Jackson Turner show up in Against the Day. I totally called that one (in an as-yet unpublished entry, but this is my blog so you'll have to trust me--or not) way back before they even got to the fair. Careful reader (or American history knowledge) points for me!

Then again, some mention of bombs (in regard to Chums in Europe backstory) had me stopping to wonder whether bombs--as in bombs bursting in air giving proof through the night--had been invented by 1893. So maybe not so much on the American history front.