So I finished my second full reading of Gravity’s Rainbow today. And then I read the last section three more times. And my brain feels fried. I was thinking about rereading V. after this, but I think a break will do nicely. So I picked up Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo on Pynchon’s recommendation (“check out Ishmael Reed,” the narrator tells us on page 588 of Gravity’s Rainbow). A stroll through the lit crit section led to my spying (okay, looking for and finding) the 20th Century Views collection on Pynchon. So we’ll see how that reads.
Biblioklept 
Reed is a special favorite. Deserves much wider recognition.
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Agreed on Reed. Though I sometimes think, when I think that a writer deserves wider recognition, that I’m really wishing for a wider potential readership than is actually out there, because that would mean a better human race, which is not the case. So we try to seek out those we feel are tuned-in to the voice we hear in that writer (for me it’s Pynchon, Ammons, Transtromer that I’m always pushing on those poor people) and, you know, push books into their hands.
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I also bought my copy of Mumbo Jumbo because of Pynchon’s nod to him… Looking forward to your thoughts on it.
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[…] copy of The Borrowers for my daughter and to replace a copy of Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo, which I bought last month, read, and then gave away to a friend. I still aim to write something about it on the blog (hence […]
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