waking up from pynchon, etc

so i just finished 'the crying of lot 49'. pynchon. no, i'd never read it before. don't you just love/hate when someone asks you if you've read something & you know you SHOULD have, but you just haven't yet, for whatever reason? that makes me climb the walls. in any case, i finally picked up a cheap paperback edition of the book & devoured it in the space of a day. finished it about ten, fifteen minutes into my shift at work (i do the maitre'd-thing at a local bar/grille, it's pretty slow in there until about seven or eight), on a monday night. monday is one of my least favourite nights of the week to work, because i share the shift with a retarded elf-woman waitress who is lazy and stupid. in any case. so i finish the book, stare around dreamily, and then realize i have about three hours left to go and no caffeine in my system.

which is when the rush hits. having only ever read one other pynchon (gravity's rainbow, and only half), i had no idea the power of his concluded narrative. i waded around in the dim restaurant, totally fuzzed out of it, completely useless in my employment. i had a small "app-slip" pad in my pocket (appetizer slip, used for making orders in the kitchen) & a pen, but my thoughts whizzed by. pynchon made me want to write. i was hungry to write. i was also despairing, because there's no way in hell i can ever aspire to write like he does. genius. total genius. i have never experienced anything like 'the crying of lot 49'.

i found a copy of durrell's 'black book' (i'm looking at you, kay) & a copy of an interview with him, conducted by marc alyn - entitled 'the big supposer.' so far, it is worth the fifteen dollars i spent - however, in the midst of this weird, bleak fall, i have decided (FINALLY) to pick up paul auster's 'new york trilogy' & am obsessing over it, now, too.

this is a time for reading, and i couldn't be more thrilled. has anyone read any of anne enright's 'the gathering' - which just won the man booker? i read an excerpt over at the telegraph.co.uk, and at first was a little disgusted at what seemed like facile writing, but there's something there. i'm curious to read what beat out mcewan's latest, though i haven't read it. also, has anyone read 'christine falls' by john banville's pseudonym? a co-worker was just reading 'the world without us' by alan weisman ... fascinating excerpts, from what i read. portland - and maine - is such a small town, though, and we don't get what we should for reading material. it's limited to the small estuaries just off the mainstream. i never hear about the things i'd like to. oh well. west coast, here i come (or bust)