Post by A comet crashing into Earth on May 17, 2017 9:26:18 GMT -5
There's some threads about specific aspects of it, but apparently we don't have one just for general discussion. So here we are.
A friend asked to borrow my copy, which prompted me to read it again myself ("just as many chapters as I can before the next time I see em", and suddenly I'm three quarters through it and staying up late in order to finish it before I might bump into em by coincidence). This meant I had it lying around when I had a handful of other people over the other day, and now there's a queue of four people waiting to borrow it from me (and consequently, at some point in the future four people who shares that part of my frame of reference - I rejoice!).
Anyway, I was actually reminded of my initial slight disappointment in it; I had a feeling while reading that Handler was missing out on an opportunity to represent queer people (since that's what I'd expect him to do with such a book), but I was clearly in the wrong there; as I write this, I browse through the index page, and see enough examples of gay people to make me delete and rewrite the whole paragraph of complaint.
Then there's the fact that it just goes on for too long. The last three segments (chapters? Stories?) at least felt superfluous to me, and I think I was only reading them to see if they contained some grand clue to tie all the different storylines together, which they didn't. Often was a fairly nice read, and I think Not Particularly will stay in my mind for a while, but other than that, I think the book would've done fine with the 13-part format its author is so familiar with.
That said, in spite of a few things not really being to my taste, it has the clever rhetorics that are the reason I love DH's writing in the first place. Truly was the metaphorical bucket of water I like to have thrown in my face at some point during a book, with all its metaness. By the way, there's a passage - I can't find it now, but I think it said something like "I wrote a book once, and people thought there was too much sex in it." Am I right in thinking that's a reference to WYM, do you think?
