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A review by briandice
Women and Men by Joseph McElroy
5.0
people matter
people = matter
people R matter
people are the matter
Most books you read. There are some, however, that read you. Women and Men read me, and found me lacking.
Everything got an explanation: the difference is you pick some things to not explain.
It began with a birth and a word: Breathe. In the beginning was the Word. You can live without breathing, you can't live without breath. Teach me, Jim Mayn, about special reincarnation, about the Choor Monster, the Anasazi Healer, the Hermit-Inventor of New York. Can you be both yourself and another? Your grandmother, the Navajo prince, Spence?
But we do. We are. Angels of change, seeking human limit.
Unearthed from a box of several hundred pictures received from my uncle two years ago, this is a photo of Ira and Margaret Dice on their farm in Atalissa, Iowa (pop. 311) - early 1900s. My paternal great-great grandparents stand in front of their farmhouse; long-shadowed late in the day and posing for a picture they don't look happy to take. I Breathe in, connect myself to them - I become them. I Breathe out and connect myself to my great-great grandchildren 100 years from now, become them. I am Jim Mayn from the past, Jim Mayn from the future. I have seen the joining of genders into one. I have experienced the special reincarnation.
Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn - Dickinson
Which is the journey, which the destination?
But I've missed it. I know I have. I'm 200 pages from the end of this novel that isn't, this book that is like a literary toxin. I have a Word-infection that feels terminal; I am unable to complete the book because I both don't want it to end and because I know when it is done I will start it over again. And I'm not interested in reading anything else. It's my Infinite Jest loop. Women and Men and Women and Men and...
...there are many gods, and when we organize and rank them we go too far, we ask too much of them.
I want to become a better reader, the attendant appropriate to this novel, a book without equal.
for you are some earlier thing's future
I am not worthy.
people = matter
people R matter
people are the matter
Most books you read. There are some, however, that read you. Women and Men read me, and found me lacking.
Everything got an explanation: the difference is you pick some things to not explain.
It began with a birth and a word: Breathe. In the beginning was the Word. You can live without breathing, you can't live without breath. Teach me, Jim Mayn, about special reincarnation, about the Choor Monster, the Anasazi Healer, the Hermit-Inventor of New York. Can you be both yourself and another? Your grandmother, the Navajo prince, Spence?
But we do. We are. Angels of change, seeking human limit.
Unearthed from a box of several hundred pictures received from my uncle two years ago, this is a photo of Ira and Margaret Dice on their farm in Atalissa, Iowa (pop. 311) - early 1900s. My paternal great-great grandparents stand in front of their farmhouse; long-shadowed late in the day and posing for a picture they don't look happy to take. I Breathe in, connect myself to them - I become them. I Breathe out and connect myself to my great-great grandchildren 100 years from now, become them. I am Jim Mayn from the past, Jim Mayn from the future. I have seen the joining of genders into one. I have experienced the special reincarnation.
Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn - Dickinson
Which is the journey, which the destination?
But I've missed it. I know I have. I'm 200 pages from the end of this novel that isn't, this book that is like a literary toxin. I have a Word-infection that feels terminal; I am unable to complete the book because I both don't want it to end and because I know when it is done I will start it over again. And I'm not interested in reading anything else. It's my Infinite Jest loop. Women and Men and Women and Men and...
...there are many gods, and when we organize and rank them we go too far, we ask too much of them.
I want to become a better reader, the attendant appropriate to this novel, a book without equal.
for you are some earlier thing's future
I am not worthy.