2008-01-03 Mind-Altering Achievement

Yay... I've read a book without dr who in it... quite an achievement :-)

In most circumstances I'd be left with a feeling of "yes... and...?" if a tale finished like this one did... but strangely enough I don't... it is closed... even though it is totally left unfinished... very weird you get this build up of intensity and pace throughout as the plot twists and mysteries deepen... and then towards the end it kind of slows down, almost like thought processes as you realise you might not actually want to resolve things...

It's an unusal journey for a character... and as I say is pretty much left unresolved... there are still loads of questions about Oedipa and what happens next... but that's right... there should be no resoltuion...

I looked stuff up on Wikipedia - Tristero, Thurn & Taxis... the latter was real... which has made me slightly curious about how much else is factual... books like that are always intriguing... ones that mix fact and fiction into a big mush and you can no longer see where ones ends and the other begins...

I've never been much for conspiracy theories... always figure people are to busy or too stupid to actually conspire... but this is at least plausible... in a surreal sort of way... and as I've mentioned has helped open my eyes to coincidence, or synchronicities - I mean I had always noticed the big ones... just maybe not taken in the actual number of them... or really noticed the little ones... like coming home after reading about the SS Salesman and Tristero to find my partner watching "The Doctor" and on screen are guys in SS looking uniform and others blacked up, all in black and looking all spooky and scary... I wouldn't have really noticed before...

The way that each character that we meet is on their own journey... many peripheral characters in novels serve to advance the plot, and I suppose each journey does do that... but strangely some people get a better conclusion that Oedipa... a more resolved conclusion as opposed to a better one... I don't think walking out to sea, or losing your mind to paranoia or LSD is a "better" conclusion, just more conclusive... Obviously not all... but some...

I did find I had to go back and read some bits over, but i think that's more to do with the distracting nature of trying to read on the bus, rather than any criticism of the author... Some bits made me laugh out loud and made everybody on the bus look at me... Hmmm... paranoia... :-)