Books by author: Thomas Pynchon

Lot 49 reads somewhat like a short story. It is a short novel dealing mostly with one woman's introspection, with lots of paranoia and conspiracy as added spice. It forshadows the intricacy of Pynchon's magnum opus ( Gravity's Rainbow) in a much more free-flowing form. It is interesting to note that Lot 49 was written while Pynchon was working on Gravity's Rainbow. Lot 49 is a much tighter book than Vineland and more satisfying to me on a first read. I'm anything but an expert on Pynchon, so take my words with a heavy dose of salt.

Gravity's Rainbow is the most difficult book I have ever read. In it, Pynchon weaves a fabulously dense web of paranoia, sexual conquest, and yin/yang. I can't claim to understand all of the symbolism (or even all of the plot, dammit!), but it was a wonderful experience to read a book on such a large scale in which every phrase is exquisitely crafted. I'm told that this book should be read more than once, and I look forward to having a second go at it at some time when I can devote a solid two weeks to it.

In his lengthy introduction, Pynchon himself pans most of the stories in this collection. Of the five, only "Entropy" and "The Secret Integration" were truly enjoyable, and in my opinion, the latter is quite a gem and worth the book's price on its own. "The Secret Integration" is both heart-warming and -breaking, and it's place is near the top of the list of short stories I've read. Now that I have read all of Pynchon's easily attainable work prior to Mason and Dixon, I'm ready to dive into his latest.

I had wanted to finish reading Pynchon's previous novels before diving into Mason and Dixon, and this was the last one on the list. I'm finding it easier and easier to read Pynchon (it doesn't hurt that I started with Gravity's Rainbow). I love the way he invents a cast of hundreds of interesting characters whose only purpose is to illuminate tiny portions of the main characters. His clever turns of phrase are memorable as well, and he is rising on my list of favorite writers.

V. starts out wonderfully with inventive characters and bizarre situations — pure Pynchon. I was frustrated by a couple of middle sections and the end for seeming to drag on without introducing anything really new, but overall the effect was good. V., as with most of Pynchon's novels, is tied together by themes rather than plot: paranoia (surprise), automata, etc. Indeed the plot is recursive with a push-down stack often five layers deep, which makes things somewhat hard to follow until you pick up on this trick.

The most frustrating thing about reading Pynchon is that you have to read each novel twice to really "get" it (I'm speaking hypothetically here, having read them only once). Basically, at the end of the first read, you get the gist of what's going on (if you were paying attention), but it would take a re-read to really appreciate the multiple threads as they are woven.

I rather strongly recommend taking a look at Tim Ware's Pynchon concordances as an aid to understanding the complexity of Pynchon's novels.

My only regret in reading Vineland was that I did not read it in a shorter period of time. Without doubt, it is a much more approachable book than Gravity's Rainbow. It has a fairly simple, well-threaded plot, and relatively few main characters. It is a very humorous novel, though much of the humor is black in nature. Pynchon's stream-of-consciousness style is full of beautiful detail, but is difficult to follow at times, and I doubt that he will ever be one of my favorite authors.