(no subject)

[proximoception]

29. Love's Labor's Lost
30. The Great Gatsby

Fitzgerald is a magician. And here's another invisible house, albeit of the visible variety, and another instance of land flowing like water. And the glaring precursor of Citizen Kane, Catcher in the Rye, and some things in Crowley.

My high school theory that Gatsby arranged for Nick to come out, had set up his job and home for him, does fit the facts but seems superfluous. Ockham lops another.

Comments

[thelican.livejournal.com]

Speaking of notable houses in literature, I just (finally!) got around to reading Neuromancer. (It's always been stolen from the libraries where I've tried to find it. Punks.)

Anyway, the Tessier-Ashpool abode, as inhabited by 3Jane, made me think of you.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

I get that a lot.

[thelican.livejournal.com]

No doubt. (At the risk of perpetrated a cliché, I thought.)

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Technically I should have read that book last year - maybe I still should, since it was assigned in the class I have to write a much belated paper for presently, but I think I'll do something about Vicki Hearne. From half a lifetime ago I remember a bit about the end, and some annoying hardcore people, and being baffled by obscure furniture terminology. Or maybe the latter was Madame Bovary.

laudenum in the armoire?

[thelican.livejournal.com]

I had never heard of Vicki Hearne till juste a ce moment. That's not some kind of obscure joke, is it?

I assumed everyone but me had read Neuromancer by now - perhaps you really should. Otherwise, you'll be the last one left. I dislike the techno-babble in all those books, but, you know - there's the Tessier-Ashpool abode. Also, stuff about proprioception that is somewhat interesting. Also, a great description of a wasp's nest.


You should read it so that I have someone who just read it to to exchange bon mots about it.

But Vicki Hearne, if you must.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Hearne's for real - did she sound like a pr0n star or something?

I read it, it's just faded into disjunct impressions. I'll at least skim for the Tessier-Ashpool abode.

[thelican.livejournal.com]

A little like a pr0n star.


All cyberpunk fades into disjunct impressions for me, I think. A few significant observations here and there, but no real bright throbbings.

Do skim for the T-A abode.

[grashupfer.livejournal.com]

Not superfluous if you read it as a book about Nick and not a book about Gatsby (i.e. how I read it).

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Thinking about that. I think that's how I do read the book, but what would change if Nick felt he'd been manipulated? He already knew Gatsby had done things for his dream that hurt others, directly or indirectly. And getting a job and house he otherwise might not have isn't terribly harmful anyway, unless one counts the disillusionment he came to suffer, which a) Gatsby couldn't have predicted, and b) might end up being good for Nick since it sends him home?

I find it superfluous because Nick does know Gatsby's using him, even trying to bribe him, and helps anyway. Maybe he'd have reached some human limit and not helped him if he'd thought Gatsby had researched Daisy's whole extended family etc., but is that important? Nick decides that, at least in comparison to Daisy & Co., Gatsby is the good one, since his monstrous actions are dedicated to something and not half-assed assuagements of vanity like those of the Old Rich are. Would learning he'd been a pawn to start with, that Gatsby's smiles of reassurance had been calculated all along, have changed things?

[thelican.livejournal.com]

Wait. Most people don't read it like that? ?