"Difficult"?

[David Casseres]

OK, so Pynchon's books are more "difficult" than some other things.  Like 
understanding the recondite plot of an X-Files episode, or forming 
comparisons between great novelists and rock groups.

I think it's really more that for most readers, Pynchon's prose and 
narrative are a new and unfamiliar experience, requiring the discovery of 
new ways of reading.  It helps if you've already butted heads with Joyce 
or Faulkner, or swum the whole length of Moby-Dick or done total 
immersion in TS's RGAD.*  But it's not inherently hard.

For a comparison, recall that in Charlie Parker's time, much of his music 
was considered extremely "difficult."  If you listen to it now, though, 
it's very accessible, though not a whit less complex and remarkable than 
it was in the 50's.

One way to read Pynchon is with a slew of reference books and ponies 
ready to hand.  Another is to just read through the stuff you don't get 
right away, figuring you'll pick it up the next time, or the time after 
that.  What other books have ever so richly rewarded rereaders?  Yet 
another way os to read in the company of others, and make a party out of 
putting the puzzles together and taking the clockworks apart.

And about long and winding sentences: I find nothing inherently difficult 
about reading them -- if they're as well written as Pynchon's!  They 
practically read themselves aloud, a quality I'm mighty impressed by, as 
I have been with no other book since I read KG's TWITW.






























*What?  You don't know who TS is?  You don't know RGAD?  Ignorant peasant.