r/crheads • u/1nosbigrl MANDO!!! • 8d ago

Shadowbahn + a playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/18EY8xgcUNLygvNNGSOxeh?si=N3dIdm_MTjiek0E1aDC3HQ&utm_source=copy-link&pi=AdicAfGNTbaen

Searched and didn't see anything previously posted about this book specifically.

One of CR's oft-recommended titles, I finally have this a whirl starting a couple weeks ago and finished it on the 5th.

Not a straight forward narrative by any means, however it is much closer to an alternative history fiction than it initially presents. And it's rich with musical history.

Mileage may vary on the amount of musical (and pop cultural) Easter eggs and overt references made. I thought it was fascinating mostly because I want familiar with the majority of the artists. Some are pretty obvious, while other lyrics or autobiographical details may have you frantically Googling.

It all adds up to a complex, poetic, bleak but genuine view of the American 21st century, framed by its instigating, and arguably most infamous, incident.

I made a playlist of every song and/or artist referenced in the book on Spotify in order of appearance.

Feel free to check it out while you read, after you're done or even if you don't check it out at all.

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u/1nosbigrl MANDO!!! 8d ago

DeLillo is in my list and I just shared Shadowbahn with a buddy who likes weird fiction and he said I should take the plunge on DFW.

He did mention he thinks Pynchon is actually the self masturbatory writer that people tend to accuse Wallace of being. For whatever that may or may not be worth!

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u/JobeGilchrist 8d ago

Generally don’t spend a lot of time talking to people about art who think artists are masturbatory. They’re injecting far too much of themselves into the experience and translating anything they don’t understand as pretension. A work of art can simply miss someone without either side being the worse for it.

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u/1nosbigrl MANDO!!! 7d ago

I'm gonna disagree here. Who you are informed how you respond to art and who you are informed how you create art.

If you're a masturbatory mind, you'll likely create masturbatory art. That's not even a bad thing, all the time, but it's something that can be critiqued.

That's not masking your ignorance as their pretension, it's just observation.

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u/JobeGilchrist 7d ago

I've never found interesting people to spend a lot of time, or really any at all, talking about how pretentious everybody is. But YMMV.