Pynchonalia...
So apparently, part of the reason I come to India is to read books that confuse the hell out of me. Just finished another Thomas Pynchon novel, "The Crying of Lot 49" (this time last year I struggled through both "Mason & Dixon" and "Gravity's Rainbow"), and I'm utterly mystified. But apparently, that's the idea.

Pynchon: The Crying of Lot 49 : "The text is almost completely 'open,' and readers who are looking for a single interpretation are setting themselves up for failure. Even after several readings one finds that the novel deliberately evades solutions -- indeed, this is one of the hallmarks of Pynchon's unique style."



Don't get me wrong, I liked the book. It's supposed to be his most "accessible" and I have to say that it's reasonably straight-forward, as Pynchonsmanship goes. For that matter, even though they were both heavy slogs, I enjoyed the hell out of both "Mason & Dixon" and "Gravity's Rainbow"... and got just enough of the references and was clued into enough of the shifting timelines and managed to keep track of enough members of the casts of thousands to understand that I was missing an absurd amount.

As with most things, it's mainly just a question of effort. I'm willing to expend enough of an effort to read 'em, just not to really dig into 'em. But I can definitely see how others get completely stuck into him. I just don't understand all their jokes.
- posted by slaughts @ 8:44 PM