[the Talking Can]

Originally Posted by NewChief

I'm about halfway through Pynchon's newest Against the Day. It's typical Pynchon, but I've been entertained for the most part. It's taken me quite a while to get this far into it, as the book really bogs down from time to time (also typical Pynchon), but other parts have me staying up late and turning pages like mad. Anyway, if you like Pynchon but were disillusioned with Mason & Dixon, give this one a try.

I'm in the identical situation....about 400 pages in...I like it becuase it is like Gravitys Rainbow, but it doesn't have quite the same mad/dark/paranoid force...this book has more cause and effect than I ever remember from Pynchon, the character's motivations were much more opaque in GR, and there isn't a character that moves/interests me like Slothrop did...and so far Vibe doesn't interest me the way Capt. Blicero did...Vibe seems two-dimensional compared to Blicero, but then, most any character would...

but the sense of confrontation....the anarchists, the class war, the cops...this book has an apocalyptic feel that GR didn't, which I think is a result of his age, and which has me very curious and excited about how this book will resolve...

bittersweet to think that this is probably his last book...you can sense the power fading and surging....still no experience like reading him though...the way he juggles 100 characters across the globe, and shoots it all through with intelligence and melancholy, and corny broadway songs lol...