Lurkers?

[ethan at magicnet.net]

Well, I don't know if I qualify as a lurker, but here is some bytes to read
and share (sorry, have not gotten around to finding those examples yet).

as for how one discovers Pynchon, when I was a senior in college, way back
2 years ago, a bunch of my "literary" friends were way into this guy called
Thomas Pynchon.  It was mostly a guy thing, but I liked the stuff they
wrote themselves, but never got around to picking anything up by him.  So,
after I graduated, I purchased a copy of the only Pynchon book I really
knew the title of, Gravity's Rainbow (Whoa!  This is kind a long...) so
that I would have something to read because I was not going to know anyone
in Boston.  Well, It took me quite a while to read, and frankly, I did not
understand most of it.  But after doing some literary research (the dreaded
literary criticism) I learned I had understood more than I thought.  And I
had really liked it anyway.
        So, I read V, COL 49 and Vineland, understanding and enjoying them,
and then went back and reread GR and this time was comepletely blown away.
It remains my favorite book because of many reasons: writing style,
complexity, humor, etc...  You of all people know what I mean.  COL 49 is
my second favorite, but its too short.  Its like a teaser.  V is good too,
but it seems to me, not unfinished, but definitely a step on the way to GR.
Vineland, although I did like it on its own, I found it a little
disappointing.  Pynchon's style seemed to have lost its edge.  Its stead of
being great, it was merely good. What had he been doing for so long?  I
also found the short story Entropy to be the quitesential part of Pynchon
that I like as far as writing style is concerned (as opposed to content).
It was only later that I learned about that I learned about the mysterious
Mr. P himself.

Also, I think the comment about brand names applies more to a novel like
White Noise (Don Dellilo) than to Pynchon.