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New Pynchon novel!!!

Great! I can't wait to not finish this one, just as I haven't finished Vineland and Mason & Dixon. If it's really good I might even not start it, as I did(n't) with The Crying of Lot 49. Of course there's always an outside chance of me not buying it in the first place, as with Gravity's Rainbow and V.
 
I've had The Crying Of Lot 49 on my more immediate to-be-read pile (i.e. I've picked it up and took it in my bag in case I ran out of reading material) for a few months now. It got another kick in the face this morning when I decided upon hitting the shelves for another Steinbeck.

I keep convincing myself that I will read a Pynchon. Gravity's Rainbow, when I read the first sixty pages, just seemed like a literary mess. I wasn't aware of any characters and the only thing I managed to make out was a guy climbing - or was that descending? - a ladder. Riveting stuff.

I've read the opening few pages of Mason & Dixon and found it a little easier to digest although I think Pynchon's way of telling is just really annoying.
 
Reading Pynchon is a lot like trying to figure out Bob Dylan's trippier lyrics (or David Lynch's movies); linear and literal thinking just has to go out the window in favor of lies and lateral storytelling. It's work, but IMO rewarding work. The Pynchon books who are easiest to get into (if you want to give it a try) are probably "Vineland" and "The Crying Of Lot 49". Both almost read like normal books at times.

I really should re-read his previous books on some occasion. I've only read each book once, which is probably not nearly enough.
 
I didn't have any problems reading The Crying of Lot 49 within a single night. I would even go so far as to say it's compulsively readable.

The others, however, are rather daunting. I've had Gravity's Rainbow on my shelf for a while.
 
One of my favorite sites, bookslut.com, weighs in:
Thomas Pynchon's new thousand-page novel, apparently called Against the Day, will be released in the States on December 5 (unless it's not). You'll start seeing people conspicuously reading it in coffee shops on December 6, and hearing them claim to have enjoyed it on December 7. (I'm kidding. There are, of course, people who really do understand and love Pynchon's novels, and they're both totally psyched about this news.)
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Hear that, mrkgnao? We got mentioned on bookslut!
 
Wow, we're famous! :cool:

If people want to join this highly select group, I was just thinking that the book I'm reading now, A walk on the wild side by Nelson Algren, could be a good warming up exercise before diving into Pynchon. Algren mostly stays in one place (New Orleans) and one time (1931), but his characters and... well, "plot" could be too strong a word... are rather pre-Pynchonesque, and he has a similar attitude of "OK, I'd like to tell you a story. But I'm going to do it in ways no-one's used before." (if rather milder than T.P.)

*mrkgnao*
 
It's here!!! :D :D It's sooo pretty! And soo HUGE! But to be fair, not that huge for a 1085 pages book... :rolleyes:

And, curses curses, the book I'm reading now (The people's act of love by James Meek) has turned out to be good, damn it, so I'm going to have to finish it before I can read ATD... :( :p Basically, I don't have time to be at work. Shouldn't there be a Pynchon holiday? For, say, a month?

*mrkgnao*
 
ions said:
Amazon is stating that November 21st is the release date for Against The Day.
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I know, that's why I was so unprepared and reading another book... Could be an early export edition I think... A small perk for Swedes ;)
 
beer good said:
Linear and literal thinking just has to go out the window in favor of lies and lateral storytelling.
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Too bad hundreds of thousands of years of natural selection programmed the human brain to process information linearly, dually and literally :rolleyes: but I applaud the post-modernists' belief that they can change human nature.

I'm constantly postponing my immersion in Pynchon's work. I bet he's got a great imagination, and an ability to seamlessly connect otherwise unconnectable trivia in huge, epic narratives. But after browsing through his books, I got the impression that Pynchon is a bit like Lovecraft: for all his wild ideas, he couldn't write a decent sentence to save his soul from eternal damnation. This year I read Gore Vidal's United States, and I was delighted to learn Mr. Vidal thinks the same: great imagination, poor linguistic skills.

Still, something inside me keeps drawing me to this guy, that I'm sure sooner or later I'll read him.
 
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