Status Updates From The Cruft of Fiction: Mega-...

What a great opening to the Gravity's Rainbow discussion (which Letzler has saved for last): "...it [GR] has that rare property shared by only the greatest books: it turns us all into hypocrites."

Ah, OK, now he’s taking on the role of humor in the mega-novel’s cruft. Excellent.

Letzler seems incapable of allowing that some "cruft" is simply the author stepping away from plot to have some fun (e.g. some of DFW's Incandenza filmography footnote gags). There's also a line of thought that minimizes the human element from the reading experience and tends towards something like search engine optimization. But, for all my gripes, this is mostly very solid criticism (except the Flaubert piece).

Thanks to David Letzler, I now know that I am an "insane reader": "It's hard to imagine any sane reader processing more than the first few entries of any of these lists [from a collage page in MZD's House of Leaves]" (8).

"All together now..."

Gravity's Rainbow

The Elephantiasis of Midnight's Children

Wind-Up Bird. I'm guessing ; pretty cruft.

"Garbage is 'connected' to 'everything'"

Think there's any cruft in Underworld?

"...'a nation of paranoiacs would be a totalitarian's dream.'"

Can't help but think James Wood a bit dense.

Please buy this book.


( I take a 70% of each sale, so, you know....)

2666--"substantial cruft"

Kind of regret having so much whores-in-bars cruft cut from The Royal Family.

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