What the hell happened there? The first 3rd of this is great. Very introspective, lot of different ideas, lot of puns, mostly its about language i think.
Its very experimental and 60s. The puns and other humour had a certain rythmn to them that made it feel almost like beatnik poetry in places.

The setup, person waiting in an airport, an important minor point is that they have a copy of the Story of O. Or some equivalent work, i think this one was something like the Language of Oc.
This 'Story of O' parody i eventually realise is another joke, with Oc representing language /grammer itself and the joke being that grammer is being tortured by authors these days or somthing.
Its also about sex, mostly it seems because in certain languages, such as french, all objects are made either male or female, a fact the author seems obsessed with. The tongue apparently is female.

However after the first third things start happening, events occur, and it becomes more external and less internal and far less interesting. I thought it might recover after this clunky middle section but instead it just turns into surreal parody with noir and fantasy bits and invasions of nuns and revolutionaries... its just complete bollocks.

Its all still quite tolerable with its puns and its nonsense but very disappointing after that opening. I'm trying to think if i've actually liked any of the so called experimental literature of the 60s?
In any case, this is another one thats more Frankenstein than Lisa (weird science). ( )

This novel has it all - operatic references to the central theme (the protagonist's unclear sex), a lesbian underworld to which our hero(ine) descends, plenty of silly puns, (post)modernist metanarratives going on, stereo writing, porn... I'm less keen on the (somewhat dated) revolution parody bit, but nevertheless this queer experimental novel is very close to my heart. ( )

This bizarre novel is a work of modern fiction set in an airport, and like the architecture of airports it is very modern but dated in the way that modern things from the 50's, 60's & 70's seem to age rather quickly. The narrator is "in transit" - between flights - at the airport having decided to skip the ongoing flight and reflecting on the narrator's past life and the undefined status of being in transit. Suddenly, the narrator cannot remember his/her sex and rather comically tries to figure that out. More odd events transpire eventually leading to a rebellion against the airport. The book is full of wordplay, especially puns, and satire of the modern world. It's the best book with a gender-ambiguous narrator that I've read since Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson.

Favorite Passages:

"Have you noticed how little of the twentieth-century life is in fact conducted in twentieth-century surroundings? There are precious few places where you can glance unhibitedly round you and be sure of never placing eyes on an artifact that's an anachronism. Indeed our century hasn't yet invented a style -- only a repertory of cliche motifs which aren't in fact functional, since they can be stuck on anywhere, but which imitate the machine-turned and stream-lined and thereby serve the emotional purpose of signaling that our century prefers function to style." - p. 22 ( )