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I'm only 80 pages in, so can't say much yet, but at least this is a discussion in which I have *something* to say.
Regarding the readability, I took a skim through Pynchon's other work just now, and apart from Gravity's Rainbow (which is dense and complex on every page, it seems) and Mason & Dixon (which I somehow could not finish, I got as far as them reaching America, and something made me just stop, I wasn't enjoying the writing or the story anymore) I don't think Against The Day is any easier reading than the others. It reminded me immediately of V.
...and that's the thing. V was the first Pynchon I read, and it is a marvelously easy read. One of the reasons I persisted with Gravity's Rainbow was that having read V, I knew that in all that complex writing and near-impossible to follow sequence of events, was a really good story, and lots of fun also.
I'm happy that ATD is an easy read. I wasn't sure I was ready right now for another Gravity's Rainbow.
As for characters, I'm not sure what is meant by the lack of depth. Sure, in GR, many characters are glossed over, and I am sure they will be here. This is no different than almost any novel I have read with a large cast.
I have a feel for some of the characters in ATD already. Lew Basnight definitely has an individual personality, as does Merle Rideout.
Maybe the critics need too much extra description to get the idea that a character has personality. One of the first things I loved about Pynchon was his ability to get things across in a single sentence that would take many writers a paragraph. Example, Merle travelling with his daughter:
"As Merle watched her sleep, an unmanly warmth about the eyeballs would surprise him."
One sentence, especially in context with what you already know about Merle and Erlys and how she left him, and you get that this is a usually stoic man, not generally given to shows of emotion, who loves his daughter so intensely that it breaks through and brings out the uncharacteristic display of strong emotion.
But didn't it sound so much better the way Pynchon wrote it?
And the reviews which complained how the book ends without resolution or how narrative refuses to follow the usual rules - I guess those reviewers never read any Joyce or Burroughs. Resolution is not what I am looking for here. I don't much mind where Pynchon is going or whether we get there, I just want to be along for the ride. I know it's going to take me places I want to go.
So far the only issue I am having is that occasionally some of the language sounds a bit odd. In some sections, he has a tendency to end sentences with the words of, with, in, and so on, in a manner which sounds unnatural. Knowing Pynchon, I am assuming that he has done this intentionally as it is the voice/style of the characters or area about which he is writing.
Beyond that I am really enjoying it, much more than Vineland or M&D, almost as much as GR and as much as V. If this really is Pynchon's last book, it's looking to be a really good way to go out. |
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