Reviews
Finally, a noir tale that gives me nostalgia.
really funny, thought-provoking, and all around wonderful. loses steam around page 400 and doesn’t really pick it up again until the last 20 pages. other than that this book was great.
както пее Карли Саймън: nobody does it better, makes me feel sad for the rest от текста за Сборище на трубадури: Това, което извършва атаката от 9/11 в книгата, е да маркира най-важното размножаване на световете – една от „майките“ на вече споменатия двойник. Новия свят, обсебен от сигурността, внимателното наблюдение с изцяло чисти намерения, следенето. Свят, в който има повече място за затвори, където Интернет е прекрасен и чист, безопасен и политически коректен, не океан с дълбини, а мрежа с приятели и онлайн магазини. Светът, в който Пинчън не вижда място за иронията. Вече всичко трябва да е буквално, казва една от героините. (Въпроси за по-късно: как се случва изкуството на такова място и дали Bleeding Edge не е последният възможен роман на Пинчън?)
For april Arggh! I failed at my first Pynchon read. Could not finish Vineland. I feel pressured to love this book. Not pressured by anyone except myself. Are his characters too screwball for me? I'm standing way over in the corner pretending to send a text message while I listen to and observe carefully Maxine and Fiona and all the rest of these people trying to hear what they've got to say and trying to give a shit. After completing: This is what it felt like: I'd read along and suddenly be totally confused about who these characters are and how in the heck we got here. Kind of like if I was riding along in the backseat texting my running group instead of paying attention to the conversation. Then suddenly something would catch my attention and it would be the most masterly crafted bit of conversation I had ever heard. But soon I was back to playing spider of just loosing myself in the hum of the outside world. It's a herky-jerky ride with the authors pride in himself for learning about "technology" leaking through the story line and stinking up the joint. Awwww. I just read back and I really don't mean to be so hard on the book. But it will be hard to pick up another Pynchon.
This is maybe the most accessible longish Pynchon yet. It's sort of a cross between Delillo's Cosmopolis and Pynchon's own Inherent Vice with less of what's meh about those two books and a tad of Show Crash thrown in for good measure. There's enough of Pynchon in the book to make it unmistakably Pynchon, but he's tempered his tics enough here that it seldom becomes infuriating. I more or less enjoyed it all the way through, which is saying a lot, as I tend to take Pynchon like bad medicine. It's definitely worth a read if you're into Pynchon or are Pynchon-curious.
