Hi, I'm not sure if I ever replied to your second comment. I realize it was sent about a year ago, but maybe you still browse your profile. I still haven't touched Infinite Jest - the problem is that all of my books are at home, and it's very difficult for me to read anything while I'm at school (mostly because of the overwhelming amount of assignments). I definitely recommend Camus' A Happy Death, The Plague, and even The Myth of Sisyphus. I have The Rebel, but haven't touched it yet. I also really want to read Resistance, Rebellion, and Death. I really don't think you can go wrong with Camus. I would, however, stay away from Sartre's Nausea - his prose is boring, as is his fictional imagination.

Very nice icon - it's good to see fellow fans on here. Would you happen to be a musician?

posted by FlawExact at 4:03 pm (EST) on Jun 14, 2008

Chasing editions, I actually forgot to answer your question. Which, GR or Uly, the more difficult? I grew up in a space engineering family, so Pynchon's techno-eroticism didn't phase me. The maddness he invented really existed, as I recall the '60s and '70s of my childhood. Glad it got documented.

Joyce's mythic naturalism drew me in earlier and has endured. Only the first reading was difficult. After that, it worn better each time around, save the PARALLEL COURSE chapter, which I tired of quickly.

Somethings are not meant to be rewarding on the second take.

posted by aarhusian at 6:07 pm (EST) on May 8, 2008

I tend to be hard on paperbacks. The Viking Compass edition of Gravity's Rainbow torn in two while I was reading. It now rests on its bookshelf with a rubber band holding it together. I now keep the Random House edition of Ulysses - copyright 1946 by the Modern Library and designed by Ernst Reichl - on my shelf, but I'm sure the version I read first and then reread was also a paperpack. Yes, it was - I've hunted it down. Vintage 1961, yellowed paper, same Monumental Decision gracing its opening pages. Relics, but thanks for asking.

posted by aarhusian at 5:55 pm (EST) on May 8, 2008

You asked me a long time ago about which books on faster reading I've found most helpful. Obviously, I'm not good at "speed replying." Sorry about that. There's some value in most of the books I have on this. But I still think the best is the old book by Norman Lewis, How to Read Better and Fast, first published in 1944!

posted by bookme at 3:03 pm (EST) on Feb 8, 2008

Like fraxi I'd recommend the Bodley Head text, as the Gabler has been largely discredited. I'm not sure whether Ulysses is tougher than Gravity's Rainbow because I've not read GR yet (hopefully I'll get round to it this year). Compared to Finnegans Wake, however, Ulysses is a walk in the park.

posted by chillihead at 2:52 pm (EST) on Jul 20, 2007