Theroux on Pynchon (a bit)

[Michael Bailey]

On 7/22/08, Ya Sam wrote:
>
> On the difficulty of Pynchon's books:
>
> 'I'm often in many many places left completely outside that cathedral, when I'd like to be a worshipper inside. I understand. maybe, 82% of his books'

That's still a pretty good percentage.

I've gotten clarification on a lot
of points by this list.  The AtD group read has really helped, do you agree?

Have the specific things you're left wondering about to do with
Americanisms and cultural tacit assumptions?
If so, there may be people on the list who would cheerfully
- not necessarily definitively, but cheerfully - shed some light.
(such as answers to "those M&D words" e.g.)

If the other 18% has to do with
historical references (nobody ever did know what an R-girl was...)
or technical references to such fields as mining or math (btw, did you
ever finish
reading that Penfield math tome?)
or grokking the artistic vision,
then you're in the same boat and doing better than many...