My first was V. and I was hooked. Fiction should take you to places you don't normally go. Then I read more ... and Crying / Lot 49 knocked me for a loop. (It is a regular in my California Lit class, that and Steinbeck, Maltese Falcon, Big Sleep & Chinatown. Hey, it's my class & I get to pick the books, 'k?)
Working on my Masters I had a wonderful post-mod class that included detailed Gravity's Rainbow. (I confess I also finished Joyce's Ulysses for a class in modernism, but nobody cares.) I tried teaching Grav's Rain to some grad students here, but too tough for them, they claimed. They fled like I was asking them to read genre fiction.
I will be teaching Lot 49 & Inherent Vice in this fall's Detective in Lit class. (Final essay assignment: Compare & contrast a writer's concerns over 45 year gap.) And I want the new cover blown up, matted and framed for my office wall! Surf's up, dude! Grab your board and your gun.
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