Jan 26, 2025
This was a genuine joy to read through. It's hard to put into words just how much I enjoyed the writing style here. The narration is dynamic and fluid, taking on the voices of the characters, but it has its own voice at times. The cadence and rhythm is brilliant. You understand how to carry a sentence forward--no hard stops unless it's necessary. This is not only efficient, but keeps the momentum going. (The less experienced writer might take 3 sentences to convey what could be condensed into a single sentence with dependent clauses and participial phrases.) The writing is very engaging. And to me, this is what true literature should be. Where the reader is not simply a passive listener, being read to .. they're along for the ride with the narrator, sitting in the passenger seat. The humor really shines through in the way especially, and makes every joke feel a lot more personal. It's the difference between laughing along beside the narrator, rather than .. I dunno, sitting passively in the audience, you know? And there ARE a lot of jokes here. I'm sure a lot of references flew over my head, but the stuff that I got landed well.
The story is great. I was surprised at the direction it took, to be honest. I was prepared for it to continue down the road of Zipper and gang (well, mostly Zipper I guess, since Sue and Nat found what they were good at) searching for meaning in a 'perfect' world. I actually had a bit of anxiety when I realized just how many different characters and plot lines you were setting up, but I'm glad that it all really came together very nicely in the end. I wasn't sure it could be done in under 75K words, but everything resolved itself in a satisfying way. I pretty blew through the Paradise section, it was really compelling.
I mentioned in an earlier comment but obviously the themes about creating--especially in a world where technology is evolving faster and faster every day to make it so that human voices are being drowned out among the sea of new content pumped out every day, by machines or otherwise--really ring true here. And the search for meaning, finding out what you're good at .. finding out that you might NOT be good at anything in the end ... And what do you do when people you know seem to excel much faster at skills you wish you had? All pretty much universal and timeless things.
Random thought 1: Nat has no 'voiced' lines and I only realized this halfway through her own chapter.
Random thought 2: Wouldn't it be crazy if Pynchon's next novel comes out and the title is one of the chapter titles hidden among the others in this book?
