Thomas Pynchon

Gravity's Rainbow is the shit, even though I kind of didn't want to admit it. See my goon reads review on the subject:

"Gravity's Rainbow is that band from your hometown that all the right people like. You haven't gotten around to seeing them, just because, you know, circumstances. You don't get out much, maybe. You've got no reason to think you won't like them; Tom at the record store likes them, and he's never steered you wrong. Hell, you're buddy Kevin is their bass player. It's just that... people are so freaking reverential about GR and the longer you don't go see them it starts to be a "thing". Like too much build up maybe. Oh, and of course the mastermind behind Gravity's Rainbow is a "genius". That word is a great ruiner. You know this Pynchon fella. You've seen him come in to the bar with his crew... burnt out hippies mostly, acting weird, fucked up, pranksters. Too cool for the regular crowd. Pynchon carefully unapproachable among his needle-armed guard of loons and goons. Fucking artists.

Finally, one day you see that Gravity's Rainbow is playing at the Pissing Hole on a Friday Night when the kids are with Grandma & Grandpa and the wife is pulling a night shift at the ol' cryogenics lab; you have no excuse for missing it. And despite your neurotic sort of ambivalence, you're excited. This is, after all, the band everybody's been talking about.

Well lemme tell ya, GR doesn't short change a motherfucker who's expecting something big and weird. They're like Gn'f'nR in that respect - Use Your Illusions era. They play for a LONG TIME. There are some amazing moments - transcendent, even. (They don't sound like Guns N Roses, by the way, that was just like a, a-an ephemeral metaphor, there. So get that out of your head.) They're eclectic of course. They'd have to be to hold one's attention over the course of such a long set. And, I'm not going to lie, your attention span is tested, baby. There are some trips to the bar and cigarette breaks during the long, spacey, freak-out parts for sure. But overall it's not exactly highbrow. In fact a sort of yuk, yuk, slapstick pranksterism permeates the set. A proclivity for toilet humor and sex gags. Giant, inflatable penises bouncing about the stage, skirts flung skyward, etc. This low-brow leaning persuades you as much or more than anything into Pynchon's corner. Though even the dick jokes get old after a while... such a long-ass set.

Ultimately, a certain vision emerges. A statement on the absurdity of life, I guess. All that technical prowess, dynamic arrangements, mysterious movements, and obfuscatory digressions (a light-up hash pipe-kazoo chorus?!) just to make a dirty joke on ourselves - life is to beg a fuck and people are cursed.

But do you dig it? When the gang is winding down their ninth encore and you are equal parts relieved and regretting that it's all going to be over - do you dig it? When Karl from tech support with his stupid tattoo and his 24-year old, sunshine-up-the-ass-of-the-world attitude says, with a little condescending sneer, "do you really like Gravity's Rainbow". "Hell yes," you answer unequivocally. "Gravity's Rainbow is fucking great." Stupid Karl."

Funny thing is, the first Pynchon I read was Against the Day, and it was a fucking slog! Super fucking annoying at times, but then also there were some great moments. Sort of like an overreach album from the band in the review. I haven't read much else from that ugly fucker. Tried to watch the movie Vineland and fell asleep five minutes in.

Hold on - I have Vineland confused with Inherent Vice. Here is apparently what I rally thought of Vineland when I apparently read it at some point:

"Vineland is my publisher's favorite book so I'm actually contractually obligated to like it. And boy, let me tell you, it was great!! Helluva book, helluva book! True classic.

No, really, I just thought that first line would look good on twitter. You see, I have all my reviews set to automatically pop up on my feed and... Oh, the book, the book, right. I've come around pretty much all the way on Pynchon. I started with Against the Day, which is maybe a weird place to start, but one year I found a hardcover copy at the Shanty Days Book Sale, the most glorious day of the year in our little fishing town! The high point of Shanty Days weekend? Many will say the rip-roaring favorite-oldies-infused set by Spice on Saturday night; some swear by the line dance-a-palooza inspired by the Birminghams on Sunday afternoon... 'last big day drunk of the festival, boot-scootin' country flavor, best place to pick up a pretty, good-time lady!', many an old festival vet will say with a greasy wink in his eye. Some people like the parade (finger down throat, barfing gesture), some people like the fireworks, some folks say Shanty Days has never been the same since the Chicken on a Stick stand stopped showing up. What happened to them anyway? A whole novel could probably be written on what happened to the Chicken on a Stick man... a sad one probably... but yes, the cool kids know the book sale is where it's at! Um... anyway, I liked A the Day, but found parts of it annoying. I was left feeling... not entirely convinced. Next I read Gravity's Rainbow. I found that one to be pretty much 'the shit', as it were. All it's cracked up to be, mate.

Vineland here was quite a different animal, however. It's sprawling and crawling with paranoia and conspiracies... pretty stunning some of the parallels between Regan-era paranoia and Trump-era paranoia. You know, in that it's less paranoia and more the fact of crude, greedy, shameless pig-fuckers running the country. VOTED IN, by US to run OUR country. Kind of depressing... but I digress. What I'm driving at is that for all the wacky trippiness of action and deep state stuff Vineland is actually kind of understated. I'm starting to think that Pynchon maybe isn't all that complicit in his being touted as some kind of genius or meta fiction hero. Like the Cubs or the Red Sox or... well the Packers, it's the fans that are really the problem. Insufferable pricks a lot of them. Not my publisher, though. He's aces. If anyone would suggest that I implied otherwise, I would use my myriad connections in the shadier branches of the enforcement arm of our government or possibly the underworld to have them... redact such groundless slander. Permanently. Ya got me?

Vineland was a good book. That's for all those of you who sensibly skipped the preceding immense block of tripe which was surely churned out in some amphetamine fever. Trippy book man. Real groovy."