V & 1Q84

They have more in common than isolated consonants from the second half of the alphabet (that would be V and Q for those to lazy to glance at the heading and work it out). This is not beginning well. Which is another thing these books have in common. More accurately, they (the beginnings of these two books - and even this post) are awkward.

I felt the introduction should end awkwardly, too. Yes, I did that on purpose. Not because I had no idea where to go from there.

We will get back to the awkwardness shortly, don't worry. I want to tell you about something else they have in common, which is the real reason for this post of paragraphs that end like cliffs. Me.

As you should know (you religious reader of this irreverent blog), I am reading 1Q84, but in tiny portions like baby quiches and cucumber fingers stolen from trays carried by waiters around the room. After more weeks than I have limbs, I have only just reached page 209. Of 1 300 and something. And three parts. In between I have been reading 'sorbet' reads: frivolous, with happy(ish) endings and only light intellectualism.

So why then I should read V by Thomas Pynchon is a mystery. You know those competitions where marketers ask us to test the new flavour of chips or yoghurt or fizzy drink, and name it - which is so dubious because, if they can't figure it out, there has to be an experimental and perhaps accidental mouthful of preservatives and flavourants in there? This is that kind of mystery.

Let's retrace our steps back to the awkward introduction (not because we've lost our way. No. Definitely not).

Ulysses. Yet another thing these books have in common. If Terry Pratchett is prince of light reads, Murakami is prince of opaque Literature. James Joyce is king. The plot of a Murakami novel cannot be summarised without sounding like a Philip K Dick plot (which is really the snail trail of his brainwaves on acid).

You don't believe me? The first protagonist is a gym trainer slash assassin, who murders wife-beating politicians with a tiny ice pick. The second protagonist is a language tutor who discards his ethics to rewrite a short story so that the author can win a prize. She is a dyslexic, potentially emotionally disturbed young woman, who cannot use punctuation in speech. She also believes in 'Little People'.

Oh and there is some kind of space-time warp where events impose themselves in hindsight like a waiter with a tray of baby quiches into your conversation.

V is a colleague of said waiter, except he apologises and then explains what is on the tray under your nose. In other words, the characters and even the narrator steer you toward a premeditated snail trail of thought. The narrator outlines the potential paths you can follow and the exits you can choose, should you choose to follow and exit.

Despite the comparative doggedness of V's themes, the language of the first limbs-worth of chapters reminded me of Joyce. Sentences end abruptly, words leapfrog each other and dialogue is sometimes invisible.

The book begins by following a drifter who is AWOL from the navy. His name is Profane. He drifts for a while, building roads, until drifting back to his former cabinmates, all of whom are um choice characters. The moral epitome of the sort of person who doesn't read. Including the women. The language and even the characters quickly become your calendar - the setting for the memory of these days and weeks.

Despite this, I was irritated by how little of the chapters I understood. Until the chapter in which Profane signed up to hunt and cull alligators in the sewers. Here I finally understood Profane - divorced from most of the cabinmates I judge so pretentiously.

Confession (don't get excited; this is only a mushroom of a confession): My Kindle copy of V is not exactly legal. By which I mean it is entirely illegal. I rarely read free books unless they are loaded on my library card (if you happen to find it) or loaned from a friend. And by rarely, I mean never. I am setting a precedent for when I am an author and need income to pay for food.

As you don't know, because you never do such things, pirated copies are often of bad quality. This may explain the missing articles, prepositions and conunctions. And the misspellings of 'it' and 'and'. The BA student will loftily proclaim that this is a practical metaphor for the death of the author. But no. My guess is that either this is an edited but unproofread manuscript or an OCRed version of the Kindle version.

Perhaps the alligators never waddle through the original version.

Now, this is awkward.

Another confession (a toddler of a mushroom): The two books have less in common than I have suggested. Not only because my copy of 1Q84 is legal. V plays with language and ideas, but you can still read it for hours on end without remembering you haven't had a cup of coffee yet.

1Q84 is why you need coffee.

From these last two posts, you might think I do not like 1Q84. I do. (Confession: I am not sure whether I do or don't.) But, true to form, it is opaque, even opaquely opaque.

PS. This conclusion is intentionally awkward.