A Ranking of Pynchon's Novels

[Bob Berg]

Thank you, Laura.  My first forays into GR and AtD were waylaid by life 
and other variables.  I interpret your enthusiasm as a gentle invitation 
to keep trying!

V. was more of a 'damn the torpedoes and keep reading' exercise for me 
(as was Ulysses, which took a total of more than a year to finish) than 
I would have liked it to be.  I have only vague and mist-laden 
recollections of Benny and the crew.  When I got bogged down in both GR 
and then AtD, the group read for M&D came along at a time when I could 
enjoy a second and much deeper read.  Thanks to all who helped me get so 
deeply into .

bob


On 7/23/15 12:30 PM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
> Lucky guy! You still have Gravity's Rainbow to look forward to!
>
> Laura
>
>     -----Original Message-----
>     From: Bob Berg
>     Sent: Jul 23, 2015 12:46 PM
>     To: Monte Davis , Mark Kohut
>     Cc: John Bailey , David Morris , Bruce Appelbaum , James Robertson
>     , Conor McDade , Chris v , jochen stremmel , pynchon -l , Heikki R
>     Subject: Re: A Ranking of Pynchon's Novels
>
>     I am basically a lurker here, and haven't yet read all of the
>     oeuvre. I am a Slow Reader.  I am thankful for the (hopefully only
>     temporarily) aborted group read giving me the impetus to be well
>     into a second reading of M&D.  I am offering this link as an
>     indication to why I put M&D at the top of the list of TRP's novels
>     that I have read.
>
>     http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/pynchon/mason1.html
>
>
>     bob
>
>     my list so far...
>
>     1.Mason & Dixon
>     2.Inherent Vice
>     3.V.
>     4.CoL49
>     5.Vineland
>     6.Bleeding Edge
>
>     ps.  I don't consider this a hierarchical list of quality at
>     all... just sharing with you how much I enjoyed reading each one
>     relative to the others.  And I enjoyed the last on my list (BE)
>     much more than half of all other authors I've read.
>
>     On 7/23/15 10:03 AM, Monte Davis wrote:
>>     1. Mason & Dixon
>>     2. Gravity's Rainbow
>>     3. Against the Day
>>     4. Crying of Lot 49
>>     5 / 6. V. / Bleeding Edge
>>     7. Vineland
>>     8. Inherent Vice
>>
>>     Obviously the weight and spread of history informing the "big"
>>     books is important to me. CoL49 is a gem (I've never agreed with
>>     Pynchon's deprecation in the Slow Learner intro), with
>>     substantial stretches of his best-worked surface, and lacks only
>>     that deep web of connections to tie with AtD or even be #3. I
>>     anticipate that I'll keep growing into Against the Day, based on
>>     how much more it gave me on rereading.
>>
>

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