Wow, that puts the pressure on me. 63 bucks. Good news is that it might give you 63 hours of reading time. Bad news is that you will never again be satisfied with the sentences you write after reading Gass. Those guys at the bottom are like the ancient Yankees' "Murderers Row," the Bronx Bombers.
P.S. You could find some chapters from The Art of Excess published as articles in journals--Heller, Gaddis, Coover, McElroy. A preis of Pynchon in "Gravity's Rainbow at Fifty," in Open Letters Review and deep in the Stack.
Thanks. Will take a look. I have a soft spot for lawyers, having "raised" (if that's the right word) two. Wondering if you know de la Pava's Naked Singularity, lawyerly long and sometimes funny. I'm also rather new to Substack. I think we can chat if you subscribe.
I found a copy for $50, and by the time all the fees and shipping $63. They also have a copy on the Internet Archive. I have enjoyed your insights into The Public Burning and now the Tunnel. I have not read the latter, and tried the former years ago and did not have the ability then to have an idea what was going on. Some of my favorite books of all time, I had to take a run at several or many times before I got them: Ulysses, IJ and GR were all like that. But so was Moby Dick.
I just started reading "The Art of Excess" online today. I was looking to find a copy at a reasonable price—kinda hard, maybe you should do a reissue or new edition?—as it was mentioned in a Wikipedia article on Systems Novels. Apparently, I am writing a Systems Novel, and I didn't even know what that was. The first draft was written in 1988-9, finished and then put on the shelf. I had incorporated a lot of music and lyrics into my text, and it turned out that a lawyer that I worked with had a contact with the band R.E.M.'s lawyer. It took the gas out of me that they refused my request to use one-half of one verse. (I even had a publisher ask for more pages after a submission, and I didn't have the heart to follow-up.)
I picked it up again and worked on it for a while around the time "The Pale King" came out, which is set in Peoria (so is mine) and my prose and humor could be compared to Him (meaning DFW). So I read it and had to wait until I forgot everything about it so I could work on mine again.
I have just retired last year and was looking for a new addiction and guess what was staring at me? All 666 pages (yup!) of "The Monkey Wrench" circa 1988 to 2014. It is really trippy reading myself almost 40 years later.
Anyway, I have just published the near-final draft of Chapter 1 over on my Substack. I am a new user and just learning how to use. I am certainly going to read your DFW pages. If you want to get a taste of my writing, I have several excerpts of the book, and the beginning of a new one I'm writing once I finish revisions of TMW.
Wow, that puts the pressure on me. 63 bucks. Good news is that it might give you 63 hours of reading time. Bad news is that you will never again be satisfied with the sentences you write after reading Gass. Those guys at the bottom are like the ancient Yankees' "Murderers Row," the Bronx Bombers.
P.S. You could find some chapters from The Art of Excess published as articles in journals--Heller, Gaddis, Coover, McElroy. A preis of Pynchon in "Gravity's Rainbow at Fifty," in Open Letters Review and deep in the Stack.
Thanks. Will take a look. I have a soft spot for lawyers, having "raised" (if that's the right word) two. Wondering if you know de la Pava's Naked Singularity, lawyerly long and sometimes funny. I'm also rather new to Substack. I think we can chat if you subscribe.
I found a copy for $50, and by the time all the fees and shipping $63. They also have a copy on the Internet Archive. I have enjoyed your insights into The Public Burning and now the Tunnel. I have not read the latter, and tried the former years ago and did not have the ability then to have an idea what was going on. Some of my favorite books of all time, I had to take a run at several or many times before I got them: Ulysses, IJ and GR were all like that. But so was Moby Dick.
I just started reading "The Art of Excess" online today. I was looking to find a copy at a reasonable price—kinda hard, maybe you should do a reissue or new edition?—as it was mentioned in a Wikipedia article on Systems Novels. Apparently, I am writing a Systems Novel, and I didn't even know what that was. The first draft was written in 1988-9, finished and then put on the shelf. I had incorporated a lot of music and lyrics into my text, and it turned out that a lawyer that I worked with had a contact with the band R.E.M.'s lawyer. It took the gas out of me that they refused my request to use one-half of one verse. (I even had a publisher ask for more pages after a submission, and I didn't have the heart to follow-up.)
I picked it up again and worked on it for a while around the time "The Pale King" came out, which is set in Peoria (so is mine) and my prose and humor could be compared to Him (meaning DFW). So I read it and had to wait until I forgot everything about it so I could work on mine again.
I have just retired last year and was looking for a new addiction and guess what was staring at me? All 666 pages (yup!) of "The Monkey Wrench" circa 1988 to 2014. It is really trippy reading myself almost 40 years later.
Anyway, I have just published the near-final draft of Chapter 1 over on my Substack. I am a new user and just learning how to use. I am certainly going to read your DFW pages. If you want to get a taste of my writing, I have several excerpts of the book, and the beginning of a new one I'm writing once I finish revisions of TMW.
D.S. Hall
The Origin of the Brunists had The Brunist Day of Wrath. I imagine The Public Burning has The New Public Burning, as per: https://glenncolerussell.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-public-burning-by-robert-coover.html
Glenn, Glad to find another Burner. Given the wrath of the Brunists sequel, I think Coover would have had more than Trump's chosen four.
So true, Tom! Sadistic Mr Big and his thugs wouldn't be satisfied until there's a bloodbath from sea to shining sea.