Secondary Text: Ecce Homo

I've started reading secondary texts.  My first text is Ecce Homo.  I have really enjoyed this text so far, but at times have found it a bit haunting.  Even the titles are a bit curious, they all seem to employ a great sense of ego, and narcissism.  Nietzsche wrote this text only weeks before he descended into madness, and that madness is clear from reading it.  I do see a lot of value in reading this though and how it will supplement my reading of Gravity's Rainbow well, but only time shall tell.

"My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be other than it is, not in the future, not in the past, not in all eternity" (Nietzsche, 2004, 37).

Supplemental Reading

Up next, I plan to read

Ecce Homo by Nietzche
The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of the Zero by Robert Kaplan
The White Goddess by Robert Graves

Just When You Think You're Done

I was convinced I was done with this whole GR thing since well I have an affective filter built up to it for a little bit, but then the other day I was at the amazing used bookstore in San Jose and found a book on the history of the ZERO.  Fantastic!!!! and so I will begin again.

351 Days Later

So I started reading this novel 351 days ago, and tonight at 8:11 pm, I finally finished it.  I can stay that this reading experience has been one of the most involved and difficult reading experiences of my life, but that I am glad I made it through all 776 pages of this text.  And while I can't say that I understand every single part of this book, well I did feel I have gained something even if my thoughts are still formulating.  While reading this book as many of you know I have been in graduate school for my credential and Master's degree.  I originally started this blog as a way to record my own struggle to develop comprehension, and I definitely feel having to write about this book, even in sparse distant spurts along the way has helped some.  I will continue to write about this text in this blog as I look back and passages and work to make some meaning of this text.  To all of those people out there still struggling to finish, well all I can say is that it is worth it, because the truly beautiful passages Pynchon is able to create throughout the novel are worth the confusion.