Heh, you didn't think I'd be able to finish this book without talking about it again, did ya?
As you may have already guessed, we are here again to talk about Roberto Pinchas, and his work, The Magnificent Third Rail: A Retrospective. Now, I did talk about this book in a previous post here, and while I said the story was weird, funny, and unique, I don't think I was able to convey to you three just how fucking wacky this goddamn book is.
I said this book was weird back then, and it is. I remember saying that giving you a synopsis was worthless, and somehow, that becomes more and more true as the book drifts further and further away from what you are initially led to believe is the plot, and it just gets weirder and weirder. The closest thing the book has to a protagonist dies in the prologue. Inanimate objects have chapters to themselves. The narrative tends to be in first-person, present tense, but there are exceptions to this, and some chapters even have the narrator speak directly to you, the reader. There's poems in there, not all of which are even in English. Some passages are concise and to-the-point, while others are oddly verbose and have a tendency to go on bizarre tangents that, due to the nature of the rest of the book, I am forced to assume were completely intentional.
Seriously, I'm not sure how to feel about it, but I am sure of this: had The Third Rail seen a more publicized release, if it had come out in an era where people would be more likely to read it (the past? The future? Who knows?) I can guarantee that there would be a group of hipsters who would unironically embrace Roberto as some sort of eccentric genius. And yet, everyone that knows him (himself included) knows that's not the truth.
That said, looking at it this way, I can only assume that The Magnificent Third Rail is one big, novel-long joke. However, if that's the case, who is the butt of that joke? The aforementioned hipsters in another era who would have figured him out to be some kind of misunderstood talent who the unwashed masses just didn't "get"? The hipsters who, by some chance, will find him now and say the same thing? The publishing companies who rejected him? The ignorant masses who mindlessly devour derivative, assembly line-esque, mass produced crap, never moving out of their comfort zone? Me, who is sitting here overthinking it? 21st Century society as a whole? Some combination of those? All of them? None? Do any of you know? Email me if you know. Post a comment on this webpage if you know.
Because, if I'm being honest with you, I don't know. I really, really, really don't know.
And for real, I'm willing to bet that it's really just nothing, but for some goddamn reason that just makes me overthink it even more. As I said before, The Third Rail will likely appeal to those with a certain mindset who could come to believe that Roberto was some kind of wise man who knew the secret to the meaning of life and hid it away in this strange, strange book. However, again, this most definitely isn't the case. But then, if there is no meaning to it all, then I realize that there's no point to asking the only question the book left me with:
Why?
I can't quite explain it, but there are so many things in this book that just made me want to ask: "why?" The material, for various different reasons, provokes the desire to question it, and yet, I know, for a fact, that there is no answer. However, that "why?" is still there, in my mind, waiting to be spoken. I hold it back, once again, knowing it'd be useless to ask.
Yet still, The Third Rail provokes me, drawing out that question with every page I read...
So why did I keep reading The Magnificent Third Rail even after realizing that there wasn't really any meaning to it all, and it might as well have been the same as reading Roberto Pinchas' posts on the Internet or something? Hm... would you accept "I had fun" as an answer? Because, beyond all that silly shit I wrote up there, the book is just oddly entertaining and if you read it, you'll likely want to keep going, if only to see what the hell else this guy pulls out of his head and puts to paper.
So, if you're reading this, go ahead to that Amazon link up there and click to Look Inside. If you like what you see, I'm sure you won't be disappointed if you spend $4 to read the rest of it. Or, if you're one of those who prefer physical and have a bit of extra money to burn, you could buy a paperback copy, instead. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Oh, and yeah, I've been procrastinating for a while, but I've still been making some progress. Sin Judge Knight is about half-way done (this isn't a One Piece thing where I'm just saying that, either. The way I have the story planned out, I do believe I'm half of the way through it) and I'm liking how it's shaping up, so far. Hopefully I'll be able to show it in a reasonable amount of time.
...but yeah, go read Third Rail.
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