...driven to despair by the wartime banana shortage...

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no this is not a disentanglement from, but a progressive knotting into...
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here is what my GR looks like:



My skull feels made of metal.
So. I'm not so far in the book yet, partly because I forgot about it after reading the introduction and partly because I started reading it (when I remembered its existence and my promise to justice) and upon the commencement of the reading I realized that I was dealing with a postmodern novel. I generally hate postmodern lit, which I did not realize until I was assigned catch 22 for a literary theory class at belmont, but it turns out there is a whole classification-genre for this type of book i hate, and I am glad that it at least has a name so I can avoid it.

Danger's over, Banana Breakfast is saved.
HOWEVER. Because I promised justin i would read his favorite book, and also because I like it when people read books I recommend and then talk to me about them, I decided to soldier on despite my prejudice. By about page fourteen (yes, you can see my prejudice was really prejudice because at page fourteen I was like ten pages in to my resuming reading phase) I had underlined every other sentence (quoteworthy, worth remembering, noteworthy, or otherwise worth underlining)and was loling regularly, and I was forced to reconsider my profound loathing for all things related to catch 22.

Beastly Fuzzy-Wuzzies as far as the eye could see...
As I said, I'm not too far into the book yet, and it is admittedly slow going for me, esp. when I'm used to flying through stories the way most people watch tv. And although I'm intimidated by some of the material from my intro...ie:

"Almost all works by Pynchon are deliberately complex. The plots are often difficult to follow both because of their intricate twists and turns and their sometimes incredibly esoteric subject matter. Pynchon's characters, furthermore, can be hard to relate to. Pynchon has a tendency to fill his novels not with real characters but rather with facades or brief cameo figures that exist in the novel only for some specific purpose, after which they disappear. Indeed, Gravity's Rainbow has over 400 of these types of characters. "

...but I am enjoying the read as a whole. And apparently it's one of those great american novel things that I should be ashamed not to have already. Probably the bananas were my first real lol..after i realized the main character's name is Pirate. For some reason it reminds me of Pontius Pilate which in turn makes me think of Pilates. Alternatively, it makes me sometimes imagine the main guy as Captain Jack Sparrow which really helps with the desire to follow the story factor.

Also I love character names and general descriptions that are irreverent, totally lacking in subtly, overtly offensive, ridiculous-sounding, or suspiciously clever...or otherwise somehow reflect some additional facet of the many-sided beast that is Things Which Amuse Us. This beast generally keeps us from getting bored, but not always. But of the sides this beast has, there is definitely room for things like Dr. Freud the Adenoid, Lord Blatherard Osmo, Teddy's - we refuse to include his last name because it is not funny it is gross - kangaroohide bag of absolute necessities, (including a midget spy-camera and a tin of mustache wax) Slothrop's messy desk, including Thayer's Slippery Elm Throat Lozenges sent by Slothrop's mother, Naline, and also the carbon paper upon which ukulele chords to Johnny Doughboy Found a Rose in Ireland are scribbled.


I must remember to ask justin whether this book has anything to do with his strange affinity for tapioca pudding...and also about his love for the ukulele.