ALNILAM - Version 2.0

I am five hundred pages into ALNILAM.

What a book. As I was immersed in its beauty this morning I was thinking about what a labor of love it is. What I mean by that is, as enjoyable as it is to read, it is also work. You gotta commit.

The only other book I remember feeling that way about recently was Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace. Holy shit, that book was challenging. If you are not a reader, don't even try it. You won't survive.

Besides the fact that Alnilam is very much written in two different perspectives and in two separate columns on the same page, there are no chapter breaks. The story just rolls on. The two column thing does not happen throughout the entire book - you can go many, many pages without it - but the story always comes back to it.

James Dickey's powers of description are stunning. A description of a scene or event or character can go on for pages. But the way he does it is amazing. The words and phrases he chooses are so creative, he comes at things from deep and varying angles and describes them in a way you would never think of but can't help but appreciate. He also packs in intense emotion and fascinating perspectives and observations that make you feel like you are not living in the same world as him but wish you were.

I was thinking this morning, as I read a long passage of many pages, about Lee Child, the guy who writes the Reacher series. By way of comparison.

When Reacher gets ready to kick the shit out of somebody, for instance, the story goes on for five pages before anything happens. He's considering his height versus the other guy's, arm reach, weight, wind velocity caused by the opening and closing of the door leading into the diner, the fact that a coffee maker is dripping coffee into a cup behind the bad guy, the fact that the enemy leans to his left as if his right leg is in pain, what time Reacher had breakfast and how much, guessing what the bad guy had for breakfast based on Reacher's estimation of his body fat index, and if he is likely to have any digestive problems based on facial tics................and all this happens in five seconds.

Initially I dove into the Reacher series because it allows me to pretend to be Reacher. Now I just dabble in it when I need an ego fix; the incessant minutiae of description smothers me.

BUT, James Dickey's writing is so damn good that I read multiple pages of details with great relish.

And the story is so cool. It builds and builds and builds...............I am still trying to figure out where this book is going to go, where it is taking me.

That's it. That's all I got. I was feeling the intensity of this thing so much this morning that I just had to tell you.

Hope you don't mind.