Barnie's Book Reviews #89

I finished the main text and most of the appendices this morning.

The whole Johnny Truant framing story went over my head. Was he freaked out by the subject matter in the book he was editing, or did he just go naturally crazy? I thought the implication was that the material was effecting him, but I suppose it was meant to be ambiguous.

The main "meta-story" of the Navidson record intrigued me, I love pseudophysics stories, but the oblique way the story was told left me a little unsatisfied, like watching R-rated soft core porn. I recently watched the movie 1408, and it's more direct treatment of the "haunted places" concept really riveted me and was a much more satisfying way of telling such a story. (I haven't read the short story.)

Some of the formatting tricks were annoying, but I thought they really did help the mood, especially during the Explorations. There are a couple stretches of 50+ pages which go by in mere minutes thanks to insanely sparse formatting, which really tickles the page counting dork in me.

I wish someone would really make the Navidson Record, it'd rock. The book is interesting, but not really direct enough to be really satisfying as anything other than a conceptual experiment.

Addenda:
Looking at the wikipedia entry I came across the term Ergodic literature. Interesting idea, that's the word I was looking for when describing Infinite Jest.

Insomnia #29

I haven't slept in...umm...so long I can't do the math.