I think it is official now
after reading V; I am not a big Thomas Pynchon fan. I find him too difficult,
too antagonistic with his readership, and way too obsessed with not getting to
the point. I am not against difficult books. I like a challenge when I am
reading, and have found good, post-modern opus’s that are challenging, but also
very fun and playful. A good example of this is House of Leaves by Mark Z
Danielewski, which is a daunting work one must read when they have a lot of
free time on their hands, but one that is endless inventive and inviting to the
reader who wants to enter it’s puzzlingly beautiful world. Or even 2666 by
Roberto Bolano, which I read this year. It is a long, arduous book that takes
time, patience and an open mind, but is infinitely rewarding when we reach its
final pages. But with Pynchon, we really get none of that. Opening one of his
books, I can now say, is like picking a fight with an intellectual bully who
has all the knowledge in the world but is too stubborn and arrogant to give it
away. It is a world of the writer that is inclusive and segregated, and I am
perplexed by people who can spend time reading this book and think it is good,
even though my favorite college Professor loves Gravity’s Rainbow. The plot, or
what little I can decipher as a plot, concerns two people, Benny Profane, a
sailor, and Herbert Stencil, a drifter, both searching for someone or something
called V, and all the strange characters they meet on this said journey. It is
a book filled with many weird puns and plays on words I am not smart enough to
get, and although there are a few phrases I underlined in my copy of the book,
I found this read to be a boring, threatening one, where the bully stole my
lunch money and made me feel like a dumb asshole for even opening its pages.
Rating: 3/5
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