limitless ideas

book: the crying of lot 49
author: thomas pynchon
method: purchased
completion date: 03/06/10

whoever said 'don't judge a book by its cover' never really read or picked up a book. i am fully aware that it has nothing to do with the quality of the book, but if the book doesn't feel right in your hands, you aren't going to want to pick it up and read it again and again. everything about the cover art to the feeling of the paper are so integral. i mention this specifically this time because i only picked this specific novel because i loved its cover. granted, i have been raised by a pynchon man so that may have also pushed me towards it.
dad gave me a copy of gravity's rainbow for christmas a few years ago. he has always told me that he felt that book was pynchons best and one of dad's favourite books. i have started it a number of times, but i find it just beyond my level. i thought would have a better chance getting through the crying lot because its only 178 pgs vs gravity's 500 or so (plus i left my edition at home...). however i found the same thing about crying lot. i feel that pynchon is something i really need to work up to, especially after a while of not reading. it was very challenging and i feel that i had a slight grasp on what happened but i found the plot so confusing. i tried my best to follow it with a number of re-reads but i think it really requires a full re-read.
pynchon just seems to have so many ideas in his books and i have trouble keeping them all straight. however i think pynchon rivals dickens for his character names. oedipa, dr hilarious, mucho. they are so strange but so intriguing. especially the drug addled/pushing dr hilarious. as much as he only had brief apperances in the novel i loved the 'mad scientist' shrink character. this was a novel i would have loved to seriously study becuase i feel it went way over my head. i feel like someone looking at a rothko for the first time in a gallery.
xo -ellebee