i’m extremely conflicted. i have started this book 5 different times in the past 15 years. each time i get to a different point in the book and get so frustrated that i simply cannot continue reading it. i’ve never made it through the book. the characters are so irritating that i just want to strangle them and the flies in the eyes?!? jesus! i just can’t bring myself to keep reading so i inevitably quit! i just put the book down and stop reading.

i’ve yet to finish…

maybe some day.

I’m a little conflicted here. I don’t really want to give the book 4 out of 5 – I want to give it 3 and 5. On the one hand, the individual chapters are fun to read – some of the sketches (skits?) are very funny, and I giggled out loud a number of times. On the other hand, they grew somewhat tiresome, as the same form was replayed over and over, and there’s only so much silliness even I can take.

For well over half of its pages, the book was plotless, and this made it hard to come back to – there was just too little incentive. As things moved on, though, a plot did develop, and more than that, I became appreciative of how Heller was weaving the small story snippets together, presenting information in a non-chronological puzzle whose shape gradually became more visible. As others have noted, the book would probably become better and better as it’s reread, but the rewards weren’t quite great enough the first time around for me to tackle it again right away.

I’m reading this as part of Defective Yeti’s   NaNoReMo 2007 (National Novel Reading Month 2007). So far, I’m bowled under by the lack of plot, but I can’t say I’m not enjoying the book – I giggle aloud usually once or twice a chapter. Still, I’m not sure a book that’s essentially nothing more than a string of Saturday Night Live skits will keep my interest until the end. In particular, I’m getting tired of the list of captains and majors and colonels and so on, many of whom I suspect of having been introduced just so chapters can have titles.