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[still lookin 4 the face i had b4 the world was made]

On Mon, 28 Apr 1997, Sean Hoade wrote:
> Hello, a newcomer chiming in here.  I'm taking on the unenviable task on
> reading V. and GR semi-simultaneously.  (I read one until I'm thoroughly
> befuddled, then switch to the other.  I love them both, BTW.)  Did Lot 49
> first, and fell in love.  Of course, as a relationship grows, oftentimes
> it gets more difficult before it becomes more rewarding, and that's fine
> by me.

At the risk of being terribly annoying, I'm going to do the sort of thing
I see all the time on fan newsgroups: rank the TRP novels I've read in order
of my preference.

1. _Lot 49_:  This, too, was the one that got me hooked.  I was an undergrad
English major, flipping through my Norton Anthology of 20th C. American Lit.
one day during a boring class, when I discovered an excerpt of this novel
that I'd never heard of, by a writer also unknown to me.  I loved it, found
the book, and devoured same.  The last page...how can I describe the
feeling?  Satori?

2.  _Gravity's Rainbow_:  "Difficult, but rewarding."  Hey, it's true.  It's
been a while since I did the slog; I'll try to do it again soon, but I have
a feeling that starting graduate film school in the fall will intervene.

3.  _Vineland_:  It was refreshing to see Pynchon take on new places,
eras, and subcultures from the morass of American history.  (I hope he gets
around eventually to writing about the paranoid fringes of 1990s America.)

4.  _Beginner's Luck_:  Am I remembering the name of his short-story
anthology correctly?  I liked 'em.  The prehistory of Pynchon.

4.  _V_:  Maybe I would have liked it more if I'd read it first.  Or maybe
I wouldn't have even tried to read anything else.  I just didn't quite "get
it."  I wasn't looking for linear logic, just something akin to the
experiences of the other books.  Some interesting tidbits about Malta are
all that stuck in my mind.

Nobody asked, but there you have it.  :)

Cheers,
Max

 M a x i m u s  D a v i d  C l a r k e | The Balkans produce more
          http://www.afn.org/~traveler | history than they can
                 "Surrealist-At-Large" | consume locally.
                      traveler at afn.org | --European proverb