Well I just reread Vineland and the news is still bad...

[David Morris]

Well this take on GR's advent (and thereby linking it to complaints
about AtD today) is almost the opposite of Paul's take:

"Our disappointment with the latest book may be mostly a product of
the passage of time.  Thirty five years ago Pynchon's innovative
approach to fiction writing was still fresh.   It no longer is."

So we're either bored because we're just too used to Pynchon's
"innovative approach," or were bored because we're not yet ready to
absorb his latest innovations.  Nice bookends.

BTW, I didn't read GR until 1989 (I think it was), about half-way
between its advent and the present.  I was blown away then (although I
knew I didn't yet really "understand" it), and still am.  AtD hasn't
caused the same feeling, but I'm still enjoying it

David Morris

On 6/13/07, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I am old enough to remember when early readers of GR found it 'boring' , plotless (fer sure), so overwritten as to be unreadable......so it goes.
>
> On 6/13/07, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I don't think there's any doubt that GR is superior to all other of Pynchon's books.  It is more dense, more intense, more poetic, much  more obscure and more experimental.  I think it was both a product of its time and of Pynchon's prime.  Also, I'm sure he's not smoking as much dope or dropping as much acid as he was back then.