[MalignD at aol.com]

<< That's weird, I would have said the cartoonishness of the characters was 
at its height in GR.  Less in Vineland, and much less in M&D (which you've 
never actually read). >>

That may be true but, as I mentioned, perhaps in passing, in a previous post, 
virtually everything worked in GR.  it was a rare coming-together of the 
times, the subject matter, a writer at the top of his energies, trying everything, 
doing everything, and, remarkably, possessing an esthetic and vision to make 
it all work.  The flat and cartoonish characters were a part of this (as were 
the bad (and good) puns, the lame jokes, the  the bad songs, the over-the-top 
character names) and it all worked.

When the same elements reappear, then reappear again in less succesful 
novels, a reader might reasonably re-assess.  GR made TP look like the greatest 
thing since Joyce.  Subsequent novels reveal, perhaps, a very good writer and, 
clearly, a very smart, interesting, and complex man who, nevertheless, may have 
flaw and limitations as a writer.  There's nothing mean-spirited in that 
assessment.

With hindsight and, particularly, with the publication of Slow Learner, one 
sees clear differences in breadth and writerly talent between him and Joyce, to 
stick with that comparison.  The stories in Slow Learner were written when 
Pynchon was approximately the same age as Joyce when Joyce wrote Dubliners.  No 
champion of Pynchon shold be comfortable with that comparison.  Which is fine. 
 It doesn't matter, or shouldn't, whether Pynchon's not as great as Joyce.  
He is what he is, which is, on balance, awfully good.

I've gone a little off topic and, since I have, let met say I have every hope 
that AtD is spectacular.  But it may not be and, if not, WHY is a discussion 
worth having.