More fun than a barrel of monkeys

[Steven Maas (CUTR)]

On Tue, 12 Sep 1995 LOT64 at aol.com wrote:

> Its possible to make GR into a task and to try to understand every 
> reference and allusion but it isn't necessary to get it all to understand
> the book.  Let's not forget in addition to being amazing, profound and
> beautiful, its also a hell of a lot of fun. 

I couldn't agree more.  Ever since I innocently and unknowingly picked up
_GR_ in the library sometime in the seventies and was inexorably sucked
into the maelstrom, it has remained the most hilarious book I have ever
encountered.  Unfortunately (for them), I have met many people who look on
reading _GR_ as a TASK! It eventually became apparent that most of these
persons are extremely analytical types who become very frustrated when
they don't understand some detail of their lives.  I say, read The Book
for the great work of art it is, enjoy what you see, and don't get hung up
on discovering every nuance of Pynchon's meaning or the influences on his
work.  After all, as they say, all things come to (s)he who waits.  With
each reading, additional small or large revelations missed in previous
readings are one of the great joys of the book. 

By the way, I (as a relative newcomer to this discussion group) haven't
seen any reference to the very entertaining article about Pynchon by a
college buddy that appeared in _Playboy_ sometime in the seventies.  If
anyone is interested, I will look up the reference.