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Aiden Heavilin's Reviews > Divine Days
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Divine Days.
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Reading Progress
April 26, 2018
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Started Reading
April 26, 2018
– Shelved
April 26, 2018
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3.25%
"there's more stories in these first 37 pages than most books contain in their entirety"
page
37
April 27, 2018
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14.32%
""Ah, merciless, murderous memory, when pitched upon the wings of one's own memoirs""
page
163
May 1, 2018
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20.21%
"I’m not quite sure what I think about this novel. I can’t tell what’s at stake here, or what Forrest was trying to do. Currently, I can’t detect the themes behind the stories."
page
230
June 18, 2018
–
Finished Reading
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Nathan "N.R."
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Jun 18, 2018 06:14PM
A pity....
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I think expectations got in the way. I'll probably try it again someday.
Aiden wrote: "I think expectations got in the way. I'll probably try it again someday."It's certainly not Tree ; except for a few characters that pop up here and there and can really riff. It's also just a lot of jawin', shootin' the shit and whatnot.
That's around the point I threw in the trowel too.
I can completely see why, and am sure if I had read it in a different frame of mind I would totally not have made it. There are so many digressions and barber-chair stories and rambling and what-not, it is easy to lose interest. I also don’t know how much having read all the books in order, and read his essays, helps (none of which should matter of course) - but there are characters who reappear and whose stories one is more interested in because they are already known etc. I don’t know.
While that is definitely possible, my dissapointment with what I read of the novel ultimately stemmed from the repetitiveness of tone, which has turned me off to a lot of novels. One of the things I value most in a book is diversity of emotions, which is why I really like Pynchon, who will move fluidly between tragedy and low comedy and heady intellectualism in the span of three pages. This book seemed to dwell in the same tone of voice for hundreds of pages at a time.
That makes sense - to be honest I can’t recall in detail the way the book played out tonally, so you may well be right.
And I might enjoy it more on a second try. But for now I have to say I’m more interested in continuing with McElroy’s (bewildering but beautiful) Women and Men!
