Chekhov's Mistress
Getting my Pynchon
Anyway, this is as good a time as any to tell you that I’ve never read Pynchon before. I gathered the “Crying” is the introductory Pynchon so that’s what I’ve started with. It’s good, it’s funny, it’s fast and you won’t get hurt reading it. Having dinner with some Pynchon fans last weekend, I expected to get admonished for not liking it better, but instead they kindly took me aside and explained that just because it’s a short book, it’s not necessarily the place to start. They advised Gravity’s Rainbow. I think I have to get in the mood.
I know that Pynchon fans are diehards, but I somehow feel like I missed the boat. I found the names of characters distracting and too farcical – Kotecks, Falopian, etc – and it made the book something more like a smart 17 year old would like rather than a 41 year old with withering brain cells.
Crying moved pretty fast and its farcical surreal story line made me not worry too much whether I was getting the references. I think I did get them, I think I think, but there are several books on this book, so I can only assume that one would have to read it with an eye to uncovering more than what’s on the surface to get everything. This is not a book I’m interested in doing that on. Perversely, the book’s shortness (along with the issue above) makes me not want to delve in too deep.
So, if any of you Pynchon fans want to tear into me or send me to Gravity’s or V, or any meta-works on Pynchon, then let me know.
comments
Bud: Read V., then Gravity’s. Trust me on this. 
– ed (06/21 at 01:24 AM)
Crying has traditionally been the Pynchon novel taught in undergraduate surveys, partly because it has the undergraduate feel to it you describe. I agree with Ed: Read V before Gravity’s Rainbow.
– Dan Green (06/21 at 05:48 PM)
oh my… what kind of misguided soul would tell you to START your pynchon experience with gravity’s rainbow? I read Crying of Lot 49 first and liked it a lot, so I read V and I loved it… but I have to admit I have yet to make it more than a third of the way through Gravity’s Rainbow, though I’ve been trying for years. There’s just so many threads I feel like I keep having to start over. Anyway good luck… and read V next. =)
– Desirina (06/22 at 12:00 PM)
For whatever it’s worth, I came away from “Crying” strangely moved. Somehow, the final auction scene and Oedipa’s patience seemed like a poignant metaphor for America (fate yet to be decided and all that).
– amcorrea (06/26 at 04:16 PM)
What, no Mason & Dixon? No Vineland? Yeah, not so much. I admit, I loved 49 with its juvenile wordplay and its twist of an ending. I’ll go with the crowd and say V next.
– Carolyn (06/27 at 10:25 AM)
Not to be defensive, but I’m one of the friends you had dinner with, and I don’t think we said to start with Gravity’s Rainbow. We just said it was Pynchon’s best book. I wouldn’t recommend starting with Lot 49 because that book and Vineland are probably the most dated in the Pynchon oeuvre and don’t stand up as well as GR and V (I’ve read Mason & Dixon twice and still don’t know what to make of it.) I agree with the other posters - start with V.
– ths (06/29 at 02:03 PM)
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About this Post
- Posted by: Bud Parr
- Date: June 20, 2006
- Filed Under:
Wise Men Fish Here: Literature
- Comments:6
- Links to this Post: Technorati
