Oedipa goes for a walk, but Fevvers will fly

I blogged for a couple of months last year, when I had enough time free from work - and thought I had enough to say - for it to seem worthwhile. When work began to take over my life again, as work invariably will, I stopped. And doubted that I would start again.

The blog lay unattended for a year, gradually slipping down the google ratings until it vanished from view. Occasionally I thought about removing it. I don't regret a word I wrote, but friends I've spoken to about it since have been honest enough to say that they didn't often recognise the voice which I had employed as "my own"; so, for their benefit, I thought about excising it from the record. But I was, goshdarnit, just too busy to get around to it.

About a month ago I received an email from a stranger describing themselves as "An Acquaintance". I read it, and it made my neck prickle; until I realised that it was indeed from a stranger, and was merely a comment which had been made against my last post (email notification of such comments being one of the services which those kind folks at Blogger offer). In his comment, this chap (I assume that he is a chap) had asked a simple question about one of my favourite books, The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon.

The fact that strangers were still looking at my blog was comforting, and made me decide not to remove it after all. I looked at the webstats provided by my isp, and saw that I was clocking up 40-50 hits a day on average (not all of which are searchbots!). I found this flattering, if slightly unnerving. And then, of course, I started to contemplate the possibility of posting here again.

As you might have read in recent posts, I'm taking a bit of time off work again. So it's much easier to start maintaining a blog at the moment. I'm going back to work again soon (possibly next week, if I feel well enough), and I'd really like to carry on posting, if that's possible. It's fun, and it's therapeutic to have some kind of outlet, however ephemeral.

I promised my strange acquaintance that I would try to re-read Lot 49, and post about it on my blog. I'm not going to have time to do that, though. I've read Pynchon's book about eight times, and I have enough books sitting around on my shelves that I haven't read yet to make me realise that I'm not likely to get around to it again any time soon. So, by way of a consolation, I've posted something which I wrote about it a while back. Ten years ago, to be precise.

A few words of warning. It's long (over 7,000 words, including trimmings). It isn't concerned wholely with Lot 49, as it also considers one of my other favourite books, Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus. And, as befits the purpose which it was originally intended to serve, it has more than a whiff of the academy about it.

However.

I've read through it today (OCR software, like all other software, is not 100% reliable), and I'm not unhappy with it. This is unusual for something I wrote over ten years ago. I'd go so far, in fact, as to say that it is the closest I have ever come to articulating my world view, my philosophy of life.

I wouldn't recommend you read it if you don't have time, or if literary criticism as it was taught in British universities about ten years ago gets your back up (goodness knows, it gets mine up). But if you want to know what I believe, and what drives me, then here it is.

I've posted it in html format, and in MS Word format (which is a little better laid out, and paginated so that you can tell how far you have to struggle before you reach the end).

Peace.