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Plus
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Plus -- 1977
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Nathan "N.R.", James Mayn
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Feb 04, 2013 08:05AM
Plus is McEloy's most science-fictionesque novel, but whose question is more directly related to the construction and birth of consciousness.
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You're busy this morning! This will be my next McElroy to read.
Aloha wrote: "This will be my next McElroy to read."One I'm really looking forward to. In opposition to much postmodern fiction which is concerned with the disassembling and crumbling of consciousness, here we witness its coming-to-be. I'm curious to see how the course of its emergence resembles The Phenomenology of Spirit.
It has all the topics I love, consciousness, SF, and philosophy. And it's not as big as Women and Men. :o)
I thought this book pretty much a total failure upon completion. The first quarter, though, is much more fun than anything onward.
Jonathan wrote: "I quit the book about a third of the way through once upon a time. I didn't find it a failure so much as I was obviously failing it, but I'm not at all implying that to be the case with you. I've p..."eh, I'm probably quicker to call the book a failure than blame myself for not "being smart enough," or w/e. But just to be a little more specific, this book failed for me on (a) an emotional level; I didn't care for IMP PLUS or his glucose levels or his relations respecting the acrid voice + the califoria girl or whoever it was; but (b) this book just straight up IS too difficult esp. as regards all the snoozefest biology stuff which itself I doubt'd get much rise out of a biologist.
Aw, I was so looking forward to PLUS. Then again, I enjoyed Women and Men, and that didn't sit right with a lot of people.
I'm flipping through the book and it looks good. It helps that I know it's from the perspective of a disembodied brain.
and Plus is considerably more affordable today in hd than in pb :: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394...
Heads up that Joe's novel Plus is receiving the same kind of market treatment as Women and Men. There are precious few copies -- hd OR pb -- available for under US$30 at abe and amazon. The affordable ones are likely all ex-libris, as mine disappointingly turned out to be. But at least.... Out of print still are Hind's Kidnap, Lookout Cartridge, Letter Left to Me (still going for US$0.01), and Ancient History (with a Dzanc pb forthcoming). Dzanc is working on a full back-catalog re-release for e-readers, or everything they've got rights to. Meanwhile, book-book readers, should you run across any bookshops whose proprietors don't know what is on their shelves......
I have both W&M and Plus in HB and PB, respectively. I've been rolling in the dough lately, so I'm not tempted to sell. But that may change!
Plus gets a Neglected Books page :: http://neglectedbooks.com/?p=2090"Joseph McElroy’s 1977 novel, Plus, is, without a doubt, my most neglected neglected book. I actually bought the Knopf paperback edition (one of the earliest examples of a simultaneous release in hardback and trade paperback) when I saw it on the shelves of the University Bookstore in Seattle back in early 1977. I had finished a wonderful English course during which our professor took the class through Ulysses, giving us just enough in the way of reading tools that I felt ready to take on the most daunting of texts. I was also just discovering experimental fiction, reveling in Queneau and Steve Katz and Harry Mathews, and I was sure that Plus was going to be of the same ilk.
"And then I started to read it:"
McElroy said on Tuesday's talk that he was asked whether he's having some emotional issues because of the sad ending.
When is the ebook on Plus coming out?
An essay by Yves Abrioux, "Sensation in Joseph McElroy's Plus" :: http://www.goldenhandcuffsreview.com/...
Having now finished this I feel like I did when I was 12 and I tried reading The Sound and the Fury. I need more of life's accretion to get more out of this geosynchronous genius.
I have a feeling I'll enjoy Plus since Scifi and McElroy are great reads for me. Hopefully, I'll be able to do it soon in 2014.
My copy of this just arrived, and it will be my next McElroy. Then only Actress to go before I get to read Women and Men and complete the McElroy set!
Good going, Jonathan! I'm not worthy...
J Frederick wrote: "I'm gonna try Plus again, for the third? time. Hope it sticks. Jonathan, I'm going to try to read this really closely. If you want to tease out enigmatic sentences/passages together, I'm game."
Thanks Aloha - you should give Ancient History or Lookout a go, they are really wonderful books.
J - Would be a lovely idea but am worried I won't be much use - am in the midst of the run up to a big trial at work so have little writing time, and tend to read in bed just before passing out and, by morning, and intelligent thought I may have had about my reading have long gone...
One reason why i am leaving W&M until Aug/Sept
I'll have to save McElroy for another time, too. Joyce is competing with non-reading life right now, and the non-book life is winning. I'm missing my reading life.
Okay, my compadre. Hmmmm...I need to peek at your reading updates, Fred.
No one told me how beautiful this book was going to be at sentence level. Pure music.
note the 3 non-fiction books acknowledged as research sources on the copyright page (BIOENERGETICS, ON GROWTH & FORM, etc.) - would be interesting to really do the homework & supplement one's reading of PLUS with these. But, alas, that would be a major undertaking...
I love reading all of you beautiful readers' updates - I wish I had tandem read this with you. My solo journey was a lonely, wilderness reading experience.
J Frederick wrote: "Terry wrote: "note the 3 non-fiction books acknowledged as research sources on the copyright page (BIOENERGETICS, ON GROWTH & FORM, etc.) - would be interesting to really do the homework & suppleme...YES!"
Does that indicate that one of you will be digging up these musty old books and reporting back? Where are all of our PhD candidates clamoring for the next big wave of US postmodernist=fiction studies?
Just for the sake of exactitude in citation, those titles are :* Lehninger, BIOENERGETICS: THE MOLECULAR BASIS OF BIOLOGICAL ENERGY TRANSFORMATIONS (1973, 2nd ed.);
* Noback, THE HUMAN NERVOUS SYSTEM (1967); and
* Weiss, PRINCIPLES OF DEVELOPMENT (1969).
I will add to my Bibliomanic post "J McElroy's bookshelf" when I get to it...
J Frederick wrote: "It indicates that I enthusiastically want to do this, but I enthusiastically want to do a lot of things. Like read W&M w/ the relevant economics texts open beside, some basics on atmosphere/weather..."I now own several meteorology text books. PLUS is going to stir up my former pre-med studies.
For those looking for a copy of Plus, Wonderbook (a Maryland-based used bookstore I frequent) is having a 50% off online sale for orders over $35: https://www.wonderbk.com They have one copy of Plus listed for $59.25 before the 50%-off discount. Note that it's paperback and only in acceptable condition, but less than $30 is lower than current prices seem to be. Sale is only good through 12/1.
It's gone. Hope some member of the group got it.
Not many people read Plus, maybe cuz it's damn difficult. Here's the hearusfalling blog reflecting on Plus with a touch of trans=humanism ::http://hearusfalling.com/2015/06/02/p...
[I'd say one needs to read Plus to really know what happened to the thing called stream-of-consciousness (hint, it got set in orbit)]
dzanc books now has Plus in an ebook ; but if you still require a real copy, you may have noted that both pb and hd are $$$$. At the moment, amazon is listing several pb's for under US$30.
If anyone is absolutely strapped for cash and can't afford it, I have an epub of Plus. I'll more than gladly share it with anyone, so long as you promise to get JM some money when you can. I bought it as so many of my copies of his books are originals, thus no more money for Joe. Cody
Cody wrote: "If anyone is absolutely strapped for cash and can't afford it, I have an epub of Plus. I'll more than gladly share it with anyone, so long as you promise to get JM some money when you can. I bought..."US$8.69 ain't bad (even for an ebook ; ).
But I'd venture maybe that it's more important to get the money to dzanc so they can keep Joe's books in print than money directly to Joe who's perhaps comfortably retired. --more importantly, best of luck with Plus, Cody ; it's a bit of a mind=scrabbler!
I meant Joe vis-a-vis Dzanc of course: his royalties. Nathan, I admit that I've peeked and have an idea of what I'm in for. I don't think linearity is in my future via Plus. Still, it's short and I'm up for the challenge. I'd start it now but, only 12 days into 2016, I'm already 2 books into my 10 book project. I have to pace it out or I'll be done far too early and breaking my guidelines for pacing books between McElroy (as hard as it is to resist).
For those working on their McElroy dissertations, CBR's A Rhetoric of the Unreal: Studies in Narrative and Structure, Especially of the Fantastic has some stuff on Plus. We cross our fingers that Nick will have a review for us afore too long.
The eBook is better to look at than the tattered paperback I have. I'm reading this soon. Love the sci-fi feel of it. The words in this book give me the same feel as when I read The Lost Ones by Beckett. I was disappointed when Beckett's other books didn't have that feel. It provokes a spatial twisting in the head.
AudioBook Lovers ::Set for near (unknown) release, an audio book of Plus. With Joe reading!!! [will it rival Gass's The Tunnel?]
Awesome news! It'll be the first audiobook I listen to, then.
that's very cool. I'd resigned myself to thinking Plus would be one of the McElroys I never got to read.
sean wrote: "that's very cool. I'd resigned myself to thinking Plus would be one of the McElroys I never got to read."hd
pb
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Russian
and now Audio!!!
Women and Men
Books mentioned in this topic
A Rhetoric of the Unreal: Studies in Narrative and Structure, Especially of the Fantastic (other topics)Plus (other topics)
