Thank you Catherine for this insight. The more I think about it, ,the truer it gets. Miss MacIntosh My Darling as anodyne—-a painkiller. Without these 750,000 words, life would be unbearable! Throw away your Tylenol and pick up MMMD! And tell your friends about it!——MS.
A terrific post! Thank you very much. And I thought for a while about your statement, A genuine Big Book in my view is not a search for Truth but for Reality.
I'm presently reading Chapter 62. I'm not worried about spoilers in posts that concern later chapters, because this really isn't the sort of book that's spoiled by information. Information, in this case, doesn't settle matters in the plot. Information doses the dream.
I admire Young's system-building spirit in this work of pure imagination. The details are intricate, well-considered and especially well-written. And yet, somehow, I feel like my understanding of the book comes not from my attention to the accumulation of Young's details, but rather through some inadvertent un-working or un-understanding of the information. The text, once it's entered my mind, wavers like matrix code seen underwater, and the narrative for me is a dream accommodated by the book. The details are fascinating ensembles that make the atmosphere of the dream. It's a waking dream happening in the process of trying to focus on the unfurling present. There's a purity in that, something meditative.
It's interesting -- and appealingly spooky -- to think that a system of reality stands as much upon impressions and off-line thinking as it does careful examination of the details. We make Vera's world as her book makes us.
My personal opinion is that at minimum you have to read the book twice with all the reversals by the end. The novel reads completely differently once you know everything!
This is one of the most reviled chapters in the book for the obvious reason that it showcases what many think are the book’s egregious excesses —incomprehensible and overinflated prose that no sane person could tolerate
Still thinking about this and that trip to hell was important because Vera eventually meets the stone deaf man and he teaches her the last lesson of all (so does Esther but I haven't put it all together yet XD). You can ignore the world and follow your own path. You don't have to get sucked into it. She wanted a family and to have children (everyone's biological purpose). That is as valid as to sitting around and contemplating "the purpose of life." (philosophy). Most philosophers (who are male) never married or had children. Young mentioned it around the middle of the book.
To continue, Chapter 62 to me is one of the finest in the whole book, showcasing not its weaknesses but its greatest strength—prose reaching for the status of what TS Eliot referred to as “Music heard so deeply it is not heard at all….but you are the music while the music lasts.” (“The Dry Salvages) Ryan Ruby in his New Yorker review unfairly quoted this passage to illustrate how overblown most readers would find Miss Young’s prose: “and it was the music of beginning, and it was the music of ending never ending, and this music was written in many ways depending upon the interpreter who wrote the music like the waves of music etched on his seashell heart in the womb of creation, music of long roarings and refrains and echoes, echoes from another life, another death….” Put that snippet back in its context in chapter 62 and you get writing that is to put it mildly, breathtaking, and not true but real.——-MS
Good essay, Michael! Mad comedy is better to read about than live through.
Thank you Catherine for this insight. The more I think about it, ,the truer it gets. Miss MacIntosh My Darling as anodyne—-a painkiller. Without these 750,000 words, life would be unbearable! Throw away your Tylenol and pick up MMMD! And tell your friends about it!——MS.
A terrific post! Thank you very much. And I thought for a while about your statement, A genuine Big Book in my view is not a search for Truth but for Reality.
I'm presently reading Chapter 62. I'm not worried about spoilers in posts that concern later chapters, because this really isn't the sort of book that's spoiled by information. Information, in this case, doesn't settle matters in the plot. Information doses the dream.
I admire Young's system-building spirit in this work of pure imagination. The details are intricate, well-considered and especially well-written. And yet, somehow, I feel like my understanding of the book comes not from my attention to the accumulation of Young's details, but rather through some inadvertent un-working or un-understanding of the information. The text, once it's entered my mind, wavers like matrix code seen underwater, and the narrative for me is a dream accommodated by the book. The details are fascinating ensembles that make the atmosphere of the dream. It's a waking dream happening in the process of trying to focus on the unfurling present. There's a purity in that, something meditative.
It's interesting -- and appealingly spooky -- to think that a system of reality stands as much upon impressions and off-line thinking as it does careful examination of the details. We make Vera's world as her book makes us.
My personal opinion is that at minimum you have to read the book twice with all the reversals by the end. The novel reads completely differently once you know everything!
This is one of the most reviled chapters in the book for the obvious reason that it showcases what many think are the book’s egregious excesses —incomprehensible and overinflated prose that no sane person could tolerate
Richard: I await your commentary on Chapter 62. It is, to my mind, pivotal. —-MS
So true! One of the last interviews MY gave she told the woman that MMMD was really a comedy and not to get too hung up on all the other stuff. XD
Still thinking about this and that trip to hell was important because Vera eventually meets the stone deaf man and he teaches her the last lesson of all (so does Esther but I haven't put it all together yet XD). You can ignore the world and follow your own path. You don't have to get sucked into it. She wanted a family and to have children (everyone's biological purpose). That is as valid as to sitting around and contemplating "the purpose of life." (philosophy). Most philosophers (who are male) never married or had children. Young mentioned it around the middle of the book.
To continue, Chapter 62 to me is one of the finest in the whole book, showcasing not its weaknesses but its greatest strength—prose reaching for the status of what TS Eliot referred to as “Music heard so deeply it is not heard at all….but you are the music while the music lasts.” (“The Dry Salvages) Ryan Ruby in his New Yorker review unfairly quoted this passage to illustrate how overblown most readers would find Miss Young’s prose: “and it was the music of beginning, and it was the music of ending never ending, and this music was written in many ways depending upon the interpreter who wrote the music like the waves of music etched on his seashell heart in the womb of creation, music of long roarings and refrains and echoes, echoes from another life, another death….” Put that snippet back in its context in chapter 62 and you get writing that is to put it mildly, breathtaking, and not true but real.——-MS