This Quote from Gravity's Rainbow sums up how I feel about Conservatives...

[Gravitycollapse]

And how it sometimes feels like we are fighting a losing battle. Even though I know we're winning.

"I would set you free, if I knew how. But it isn't free out here. All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few, who are the loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least free of all. I can't even give you hope that it will be different someday--that They'll come out, and forget death, and lose Their technology's elaborate terror, and stop using every other form of life without mercy to keep what haunts men down to a tolerable level--and be like you instead, simply here, simply alive..."

I read this and cried.

[Iris]

1. k&r

[defacto7]

2. I have an author signed copy of that book.....

Interesting man Tim. Miss him.

[Gravitycollapse]

4. Wait, do you know Thomas Pynchon?

[defacto7]

7. Sorry... I was fading there in that post... deep in memory bliss.

I have an author signed copy of the book which is also signed and given to me by Timothy Leary. Have never known Mr. Pynchon.

[Gravitycollapse]

8. Oh cool. So I guess Leary was a fan of GR?

[ismnotwasm]

5. Nice!

[progressoid]

3. I really need to read that book.

I started it a few decades ago.

Alas...

[Gravitycollapse]

6. Buy the companion reader and brace yourself.

Because it's the craziest, most complex, disturbing book I've ever read. The first time took me about 2 months. I'm now reading it again and have already spent 2 months on the first 300 pages.

[lovemydog]

10. I've attempted it a couple times but not yet read it.

But I will. Some of the funniest, smartest & coolest people I've met LOVE it. Maybe I should do what I did in college with a semester-long course on Ulysses. Blew it off until the night before the paper was due, then speed-read it. I found Ulysses to be one of the funniest damn things I've ever read. As a side note, I received an A. The professor said I captured Joyce's sense of random humor and his underlying thesis that language is woefully ineffective at describing feelings. 'Thought is the thought of thought'. Haha!

[Gravitycollapse]

11. Speed reading Joyce sounds unpleasant.

I'm still trying to build up the courage to read Ulysses.

[lovemydog]

9. I got a tear in my eye reading that too

Thanks for sharing it here. While it is a plague, yes we are winning. But the plague is always there. I find inspiration in the doctor in Camus' The Plague, who knows the plague exists, yet still enjoys riding his bicycle into town every day to treat people. He finds joy in that. In my experience, we on the left have a lot of problems but I take some small comfort in knowing we experience joy that some of the seemingly soulless elite never seem to feel, or rarely express.

[Dragonbreathp9d]

12. Great book so far

I'm about half way through

[Gravitycollapse]

13. Is this your first time reading it?

[Dragonbreathp9d]

23. Yes it is

It was recommended by a friend and it has been a long time since I have read something with such beautiful prose and poignant imagery

[reformist2]

14. "simply here, simply alive"... how eloquent.

[Gravitycollapse]

15. In GR, this quote is actually being spoken to a group of lab rats.

It's one of Pynchon's many digressions. And it's amazing how a speech for rats is so universal.

[reformist2]

16. I definitely will have to read GR someday.

[Gravitycollapse]

17. Make sure you buy the companion reader by Weisenburger.

Without it, you'll be pulling your hair out.

[Gravitycollapse]

19. GR is widely regarded as one of the most difficult pieces of literature ever written.

Reading it requires patience and the willingness to read a passage and move on even if you don't fully understand what happened. The book lends itself to multiple reads. And it's almost a must to use the companion reader in order to understand all of Pynchon's allusions.

[redqueen]

20. Thanks for mentioning the companion reader...

I started Mason & Dixon but stopped halfway through. I need to finish it and get around to GR.

[Gravitycollapse]

21. I just bought Mason and Dixon.

It's next on my list after I finish my second read of GR.

A lot of people recommended reading The Crying of Lot 49 if his bigger novels are too intimidating. I own 49 but have never gotten around to reading it.

[MissMarple]

22. +1