pynchon-l-digest V2 #6673

[Robin Landseadel]

I read Goodbye Columbus and Portnoy's complaint years ago and it  
didn't take. it was much like trying to get involved with John  
Updike's work. Truth is that satire and surrealism pull me into books,  
the more O.T.T. the better. Joseph Heller & Kurt Vonnegut sank in  
early, Tom Robbins initially worked for me, but there was a palpable  
drop-off in inspiration as his career 'progressed.' The spleen of  
Hunter S. Thompson, Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift always works for me.  
Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" and "Haroun and the Sea of Stories"  
engaged me at a deeper level than most modern fiction. But my interest/ 
obsession in Pynchon's writing goes a step or two beyond any of my  
other literary interests. I suspect this has to do with all the  
overlap of time and place in CoL49 and Vineland with my personal  
experience. Perhaps not the most erudite or high-toned of reasons to  
be interested in an author but certainly authentic.

I stopped "cc"ing anybody a while ago, getting irritated with double  
postings and suspecting others felt the same.