Believe it or not, I’m still onboard NaNoReMo, as I was 2 months ago. It just takes me so much longer to read it, what with English being my second language and me having little time for reading these days and the book being so thick. I’m up to chapter 30: Dunbar at the moment. I’m reading your posts as I chug along. The reason I avoid comments to your posts is that people are throwing half-spoilers that I hate to come across. For instance, every page now I’m on the lookout for whatever happens to Dunbar because one of the commentators mentioned that this is what will eventually constitute (or start) “the plot”.

The book is great, and I’m glad I finally got to read it: I started several times before but was always distracted. This time I’m holding to it tightly, so the book travelled to Puerto Rico with me where it got caught in tropical storm, and now it is crooked badly and crackles when ruffled like rheumatic’s knuckles.

I have to guess (or look up, when I’m not too lazy, but I almost always am) a lot of words. It often looks to me that Heller deliberately adorns the text with obscure words, don’t know why. To make it “elite reading”? To distant the book from its matter? To get readers to exercise their language muscles? Oh well. I classify it as only a minor annoyance.

Anyway, thanks for NaNoReMo, I’ll finish the book soon (couple more weeks?) and report to the headquarters.

They even say it in the book. I think it’s when he becomes a General and is strutting around, someone says “that guy is such a shithead.”

I read this years ago, and discussed it at length with a buddy who had written a paper on it. Our conclusion was that the constant repetitive nature of the writing was a sort of ruse to lull you into a sleep. Not an actual sleep. But one where you just think this book is about making fun of war and dudes trying to get laid. But it definitely turns when Kid Sampson gets “mowed down.” And the graphicness of that scene with people running around with bits of Kid Sampson stuck to them. I had never heard that French term before, but I think it fits nicely.

Also, I loved the book, and liked the movie. Some of the scenes played much better in the movie. Milo is definitely more sinister.

They even say it in the book. I think it’s when he becomes a General and is strutting around, someone says “that guy is such a shithead.”

I did think the book took an unusually dark turn when Kid Sampson was eaten by the propeller and McWatt, er, responded.

Did anyone else notice the appearance of the term “tickler file” at the beginning of chapter 29? I wasn’t aware that the term was that old. Huh. I guess David Allen didn’t invent every good idea.

Well, no (she said, nitpickily), not LITERALLY. Literally, it means Scottish shower. And boy would I love to know the cultural exchange that led up to that bit of French observations.

As I read, it seems familiar to me. Wonder if I saw it as a play when I was a kid?