Third floor common room, Tuesday afternoon

[notmyownage]

No classes or work -- and not quite having the energy to go out and attempt to rebuild the trebuchet -- made for a nice lazy afternoon. Claudia was curled up on one side of the common room couch for a little light reading.

Look, when you spent more than half your time studying theoretical physics, Gravity's Rainbow WAS light reading. Maybe not as light as, say, Vonnegut, maybe. And, okay, she'd only made it 20 pages in, so far. She kept getting distracted by the whole thing with the giant blobby slime monster eating London.

Literature was totally screwed up, yo. English teachers never told you that.

[ooc: Do I have to meta Pynchon? Open!]

Comments

[notmyownage]

"No, he was running around the London Blitz trying to catch a stray dog to experiment on. The bananas are probably a metaphor, though. And there's this one guy who has the lamest super-power, ever."

Yeah, she was less than a hundred pages in and there were already something like 10 main characters, including one with the lamest super power, ever. This sucker was dense.

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"What's the superpower?" Hannibal asked. She couldn't just tease him and leave him hanging like that.

[notmyownage]

"He can have other people's day dreams for them."

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"How is that even a superpower?" he asked because seriously.

[notmyownage]

"Well, he seems to not need to know the person very well, first. And then the person doesn't spend their time day dreaming because the day dreams are already being had by someone else. I . . . don't entirely get it," she admitted. "But apparently World War II generals had some very strange and vivid day dreams that might distract them from the business of winning the war."

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"I dunno, I think I still might be partial to super strength," he said thoughtfully. "Or invisibility. I can have my own daydreams."

[notmyownage]

"That would be why it's the lamest one, ever, yeah."

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"Maybe he'll die an awesome death and get redeemed?" Maybe Hannibal was too optimistic.

[notmyownage]

"Pynchon might be too post-modern for that, but it's possible."

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"And you're reading this for enjoyment?" He just had to check again.

[notmyownage]

"Yep." Claudia smiled. "It's actually pretty entertaining."

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"I think I'll wait until the movie version of the book comes out." That always happened, right? "Maybe it'll star a hot girl or something."

[notmyownage]

"You're probably more likely to end up with a BBC miniseries. No way could they fit this into just one movie."

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"You think they'd go BBC?" he asked. "I suppose it's better than going to SyFy and having it turn into a B movie with a zombie fish or something."

[notmyownage]

"Well, either one would probably end up with someone in a rubber suit."

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"Which is the point of all media, really," he said and laughed. "People in rubber suits, unrealistic body images and things that just will never happen in real life."

[notmyownage]

"It's kind of depressing how true that is."

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"Hey, maybe it'll change for the better one day."

Yeah.

"Yeah, even I don't believe myself."

[notmyownage]

"Yeah. I'll stick with books in the time being. In those, the characters pretty much end up looking how you want 'em to, anyway."

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"You're not...one of those who self inserts herself if the main character's a chick, right?"

Somewhere, that made sense.

[notmyownage]

Claudia frowned. "Not, like, consciously. But I think almost any reader ends up relating bits of themselves to a main character, whatever the gender."

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"True, true. I've just read articles about scary older women who read those vampire novels and pretend they're in love with the pasty white dude," he said and shuddered.

[notmyownage]

"See, I just don't get the whole 'vampire' thing. How is drinking blood sexy?"

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"Not a clue," he agreed with a shake of his head. "From what I've seen, it's always messy and never sexy. And they all need some sun. Badly. I'd be afraid they'd go invisible in a snowstorm."

[notmyownage]

"They'd probably, like, freeze solid a lot faster in a snow storm, too."