Stop taunting me Joel Grant - my will is strong - I will wait until Christmas

And now you have a little something to tide you over. Enjoy!

Planted rows went turning past like giant spokes one by one as they ranged the roads. The skies were interrupted by dark gray storm clouds with a flow like molten stone, swept and liquid, and light that found its way through them was lost in the dark fields but gathered shining along the pale road, so that sometimes all you could see was the road, and the horizon it ran to. Sometimes she was overwhelmed by the green life passing in such high turbulence, too much to see, all clamoring to have its way. Leaves sawtooth, spade-shaped, long and thin, blunt-fingered, downy and veined, oiled and dusty with the day - flowers in bells and clusters, purple and white or yellow as butter, star-shaped ferns in the wet and dark places, millions of green veilings, before the bridal secrets in the moss and under the deadfalls, went on by the wheels creaking and struck by rocks in the ruts, sparks visible only in what shadow it might pass over, a busy development of small trailside shapes tumbling in what had to be deliberately arranged precision, herbs the wild-crafters knew the names and market prices of and which the silent women up in the foothils, counterparts whom they most often never got even to meet, knew the magic uses for. They lived for different futures, but they were each other’s unrecognized halves, and what fascination between them did come to pass was lit up, beyond question, with grace.

p. 70

Now that sounds like Pynchon to me.

I ran across it in the bookstore yesterday but put off buying it because I’m pretty sure someone has it on their Christmas list for me. You guys are pushing my patience though.

If you hold off you are a patient man. But consider that “Mason & Dixon” was published in 1997 so what’s a few more weeks?

When I get a chance I will type in a couple of sentences from the new book to whet the appetite. Whatever any critic says about this novel, I can assure you that Thomas Pynchon has not lost his knack for intense and vivid prose.

When someone first introduced me to Pynchon, he recommended the order Lot 49, V, GR (this was before Vineland or M&D came out). I would modify the list to put M&D between V and GR. Where to put Vineland is a hard call for me, since I think it’s easier to read than M&D but not as good.

And how could I forget, Galadea 2.2 and Prisoner’s Dilemma!

Pynchon is srong on ideas, but such deadly prose…

Pynchon is srong on ideas, but such deadly prose…

Don’t know Rankin, but one Southern California detective writer who is amazing is Ross MacDonald (well, was amazing, he died in the early 1980’s). He nails post WWII Southern California.