Against The Day

[Billy Genocide]

In general response to this thread, it has always seemed to me that Pynchon
is the most unbalanced of brilliant artists. To be fair, I have only read GR
and The Crying of Lot 49. From those two at least I can say that his prose
can be absolutely brilliant and that he has very interesting and original
ways of burying meaning-- as well as challenging that very meaning-- within
a text. On the other hand, while the seeming lack of direction of his books
is "postmodern" and can work to his advantage, it also works greatly to his
disadvantage, serving more as quicksand for the reader, the point of "why
the hell am I still reading this?" (in fact, it took me two tries to get
through Lot 49); when Pynchon drags he really drags to the extent that the
reader is lost and doesn't much care-- that is, the desire simply to "figure
it all out" is not always enough. It sounds like AtD has many of the same
qualities as GR minus the level of inspiration in the prose. Given it's
length, that sounds like it could be quite a drag-- though obviously there
is no agreement on this issue. Personally, if I ever put GR down, I'll
probably give M&D a try as some of you have said that it actually contains
characters.

Peace,
EHY


-- 
"You're only as young as the last time you changed your mind." - St. Tim
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