Lookout Cartridge

Like Mr. Lieberman, I have read Lookout Cartridge twice, the second time many, many years ago. Have read a handful of McElroy's novels and find Cartridge his most accessible, and yes, for me at least, his most entertaining. Probably this is not a mystery lovers of the genre would easily take to; albeit, from what I recall, McElroy uncannily sustains throughout a sense of mystery and dread that pulls you into his tale. And of course, being a postmodern novel, one must expect philosophical asides that will delight some and infuriate others. If one really wants difficult McElroy, read Night Soul and Other Stories. While the premises of some of the stories are ingenious (The Campaign Trail has two candidates unexpectedly meeting each other in the woods and surely they are meant to be Obama and Hillary,) the formulation of simple words into intricate sentences will have you reading them two or three times just to understand them.Never replaced my unread, lost copy of Gravity's Rainbow, so I am only familiar with Pynchon by reputation; however, I place McElroy with other great postmodernists as William Gass and John Hawkes. All three writers created great novels that not only challenged the readers, but immeasurably enhanced the experience of reading.

Almost as mysterious as the plot of Lookout Cartridge itself are the contents of the other reviews for it here on Amazon. Though I will grant that McElroy does not make it easy on the reader, and that this is NOT a fun book in the same way that other postmodern classics are, I don't believe that either the one or the other justifies the fairly abysmal rating this book has gotten here. It is difficult to imagine how one comes upon McElroy's writing in the first place without being amply prepared for something completely unexpected, so I find these pans of my favorite book of his doubly inscrutable.This is a book about a movie, about its making, and its eventual destruction, and almost everything in between, but perhaps more importantly it uses the physical process of movie making to turn an incredibly powerful philosophical lens on the act of cognition, and how we turn images into words and vice versa. There are, as others have said, some fairly absurd scenarios that defy plausibility, but then again, this is a mostly vacuous statement in the context of postmodernism. Which is not to say I would recommend this book to just anyone; on the contrary, it belongs firmly in that category of books that I adore that I would still probably caution people against reading. But if you come upon it, know that there are incredible fruits within. I read it a second time and it only got better. As good a novel as Gravity's Rainbow for a completely different set of reasons. Not for the faint of heart.

InfiniteJest, Gravity’s Rainbow, Giles Goatboy and not easy to read...and great. This is like The Recognitions, long, dull, and full of uninteresting characters. Like Twain says about Cooper, you wish they would all get drowned together. A waste of a lot of time.

I bought this book with every intention of liking it. McElroy has a devoted coterie of fans who consider him a genius, and this book is supposed to be one of his best, as well as his most readable. Apparently several people think it's the best American novel of the 70s. So I went into it with a fair amount of determination, anticipating the ego-boosting pleasure that comes with discovering the value of any talent that has been vastly underrated by most readers.Well, after putting this book down several times and forcing myself to read it for page after page, I'm afraid I have to join the people who don't much understand what McElroy is trying to do, and get no pleasure from reading him. He isn't a "difficult" writer in the sense that Joyce, Gaddis, or Pynchon are difficult: the surface of his prose is fairly clear, and the occasional standout sentence shows that McElroy clearly has some sort of literary talent.The difficultly lies in knowing where in the world the book is going. The plot hinges around a tedious documentary art film that the narrator has made with a few friends (and, like the other reviewer, I am baffled by who would make or fund such a movie) and its destruction by a shadowy party. Like in Pynchon, various connections start forming, and the reader sees the outlines of a massive conspiracy the whole of which is impossible to grasp at once.There are several differences, though. Pynchon is funny, and even while you're confused about the situation (which is rarely totally illuminated) you're laughing from scene to scene. Here everything is dry as dust, and the narrator is as featureless as a camera. Impossible scenes take place (a man runs impales himself on a car antenna, apparently by accident) and are quickly dropped - things are vivid without being truly interesting, and are soon forgotten since they aren't mentioned for hundreds of pages. The narrator's paranoia doesn't particularly concern me, or seem particularly convincing, because I don't care about him or his world - and really don't believe in the existence of either, since they're both so obviously constructed by the writer.In any book like this, one has to admit the possibility that one's just missing something, and that a closer reading will reveal the book's quality and cohesion. I have my doubts, though: any book that doesn't offer a single character worthy of memory, or even the slim consolation of an entertaining scene, is likely to continue to gather dust.