The Monuments Men, Vampire Academy

This is the extra book I was reading for those with movies coming out. I started to read the book, but the movie came out before I could finish it. I am still in the process of reading, but went to the movie just to see how it would play out. I was a little upset, they have changed all the characters names, the beginning is nothing like the book and I can only imagine the rest of the differences. I kept thinking did I make a mistake on the names of the Monuments Men, but no they just changes James Rorimer to James Granger, Rose Valland is Claire. So basically, from the first half of the book to the first half of the movie, there is nothing alike, except the names of some of the places and paintings. Very confusing, I was hoping to see a representation of art and places, and I think that they did that to some extent, but the events and people names are just off. As For Vampire Academy, another book in the list of 16 to read before going to the movie, I failed miserably with this book. I had to take it back to the library, because it is popular with the younger crowd and sis not finish it. It was not difficult to read, but definitely young adult/teen. I probably will not see the movie, in fact I may have missed it. If that is the case it was short lived. My next book is HOWARDS END, by E.M. Foster (one of the 100), and WINTER'S TALE by Mark Helprin, (one of the 16, which is currently in the theater.) I have finished a book club pick and will be starting another for March. The book club book I finished is called ORPHAN TRAIN and will be discussed tonight, so I am waiting to review it after the meeting. Heads up, I really enjoyed it. The March book club book is called SNOW CHILD. Happy Reading

GRAVITY'S RAINBOW finished yeah

As you know I love to read and I will read just about anything, but if I was an editor of this book I would have probably asked for a minimize the book. About the author Thomas Pynchon: He was born in 1937 and educated at Cornell University. He was in the US Navy and worked at Boeing Aircraft Corporation. First Novel published in 1963 and he is still writing his latest novel according to Wikipedia is called BLEEDING EDGE and was published Sept. 17, 2013. It is only 496 pages. He is hard to find, likes his privacy. These are notations I have found in Wikipedia. GRAVITY'S RAINBOW was written and published in 1973 I have to say that this book made me look up facts, were these cities real, was this kind of psychic and psychological thing done during WWII. I am not that familiar with specifics of WWII except what I have read or what is always mentioned, D-Day, certain battles, the key players, the holocaust, etc. Gravity is the actual name one of the woman characters has, it is actually I believe what she calls herself. But does this book relate to that, in the later chapters we get all these color connections, but does the title relate to that. The main focus of the book is a rocket, who is the rocket, there are times that it seems that actual people are the components of the rockets. There is a character who I have mentioned in previous blogs whose name is SLOTHROP, he is being monitored because he is somehow linked to the rocket hits sexually. But later in the book, I get the feeling that he is actually, made up of robotic parts, that he is only part human. That he has been altered, in the last chapters (if you can say chapters), this character is talked about being taken apart and placed in different locations. This is also what is happening to the last rocket in the program. So I see a parallel between the two. The Rocket seems to be mentioned both sexually and scientifically. Many references are made to the rocket by the men in the book. So if I was sitting in my literature class during college we would look at the symbolism of the Rocket and sexuality. It seems when rockets go up the male anatomy goes up as well, when rockets are not working neither is the male counterpart. There is a lot of overt sexuality in this book, maybe too much to my liking. It somehow distracts me from what I want to know, is Slothrop a rocket or part of a rocket? The book takes us on a journey that seems to be Slothrop based, but is also about various other concepts. The espionage, conspiracy, Hitler, psychological warfare, mathematics, mechanics, sex, race for the power of the Rocket, psychic phenomenon, and a myriad of other things that have to do with WWII and its aftermath. This Journey starts with WWII but has references to JFK later in the book. So it is about time and how key players during that time continue into the future with a dismembered Slothrop and rocket. The places are real Peenemunde is actually where rockets were produced during WWII. Swinemunde was close by and according to Wikipedia the USAAF, did bombing raids and the refuges on this island were killed, about 5000 to 23,000. I have no way to verify this. Anyway, it made me look up other things especially about the divisions sited in the book, the psychological and psychic aspect of this time period. I knew that in Germany that there were medical and other weird experiments done on mostly Jewish populations but also on other Prisoners of War. But the US and Russians also did some forms of experimentation, mostly in the area of psychological warfare. However, I also found during my very brief research that after WWII, the Russians also were experimenting with Psychic connections after they heard that this was being studied by others. They tried this with people on land trying to communicate with submarines. I believe this book should be read and analyzed but I do not have the time I would like to take to figure it out. It took me forever to read it. I could have done without the sex scenes. Thomas Pynchon is very descriptive, and I do not mean just the sex scenes. You could be taken to these places, this is a very visual book. I think that if the type had been bigger this would be a thousand page book, but my eyes would not have suffered so much at the small print. So why the title: The rainbow is and arch, gravity pulls things down, physics shows us the arc projectiles, so the rocket would follow the arc of this rainbow being pulled down by gravity. Or the gravity of the war pulling us down from the sunny rainbows of color to the dull, drab realities of war. The END.

Almost finished

I am almost finished with GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, and I have finally figured out that if the author had put in all the demeaning sex acts in full detail, it may have at least been 200 pages lighter. I thought Slothrop might have some aha moments in the throes of sex, but only every once and awhile. So by skipping these sequences things are going a tad bit faster.

Same spot

I am still reading both MONUMENTS MEN and GRAVITY'S RAINBOW. I need to have them both finished by this weekend, as one is due back at the library and one is due to come out in a movie. I can wait to see the movie, but I must return GRAVITY'S RAINBOW by the 10th. I have had this book for too long according to the library and if I do not finish I must buy it. I When I first started reading GRAVITY, I was concerned that I could not keep up with all the organizations, trying to remember what ACHTUNG, S.O.E., BDST, PISCES, plus others meant. It was driving me crazy. In the book a character comes to the same conclusion that there are too many abbreviations to keep straight. Nice to know I have a link to a brief character. I just went online about 5 minutes ago to see what form I could find this book, in case I do not get to finish it this weekend. Is it better to owe a small fine so that I can finish the book or to just go buy the book? As I was looking at my options I found an annotated guide to the book. It had some pages that you could read and I have found that I may be too stupid to get the full meaning of the book. This book as I have said before is 776 pages long. The annotations are 400+ pages long, so you need a separate book just to find all the meanings in the first book. The annotations are more than half of the book. So I will just write my thoughts and then if people disagree they disagree. I do know that there was another book, simply called V by Thomas Pynchon, that came before this book, and that GRAVITY was put on hold so that he could write another book. THis is just stuff I gleaned from the internet. I will look deeper into that as I till my way through the furrows of this book. I will not however write a 400+ guide to the book. I and you do not have time for that. The book was released first in 1973. The edition I am reading is from 2006, Penguin publishing, apparently each publisher has a different way to present the book. Maybe this is why I am so confused when I read this book. Everyone is trying to make it easier but I think this book is confusing and is meant to be confusing. We are talking about WWII, bombs dropping, buildings being blown up while you sleep, everything is crazy, confusing and sometimes dreams are the only way to make sense of such craziness. Maybe this is why they are trying desperately to use peoples visions, just to make sense of war. My two cents worth of understanding.