Hi David. I'd like to tackle this. My take is getting excited by Thomas Pynchon's essay "Is It OK to Be a Luddite?" in college and forming my whole concept of what a comic, literary essay could be. I then attempted his novels in my 20s and came away perplexed. His whole career to me feels like the punchline at the end of Polonius' speech, "Brevity is the soul of wit," which only gets a laugh because he's spent an entire monologue giving verbosity.
Absolutely resonates. And I've avoided Pynchon because I couldn't get into Gravity's Rainbow so it's great to know that there's an essay of his that was far more accessible.
Right on. Yeah, his essays are so much more straightforward than his fiction. Is there anything else you’d like to know about my personal Pynchon journey?
LITERARY FICTION WHERE IF YOU LOVE ONE CERTAIN BOOK FROM AN AUTHOR, YOU'RE UNLIKELY TO LIKE THE REST OF THEIR WORK.
robertsdavidn.substack.com
Examples I can think of include Seize The Day by Saul Bellow and The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope.
Hi David. I'd like to tackle this. My take is getting excited by Thomas Pynchon's essay "Is It OK to Be a Luddite?" in college and forming my whole concept of what a comic, literary essay could be. I then attempted his novels in my 20s and came away perplexed. His whole career to me feels like the punchline at the end of Polonius' speech, "Brevity is the soul of wit," which only gets a laugh because he's spent an entire monologue giving verbosity.
Does that resonate? Would you like to know more?
Absolutely resonates. And I've avoided Pynchon because I couldn't get into Gravity's Rainbow so it's great to know that there's an essay of his that was far more accessible.
Right on. Yeah, his essays are so much more straightforward than his fiction. Is there anything else you’d like to know about my personal Pynchon journey?