inverarity: (Default)
Very big important literary author writes 800 pages about penises.


Gravity's Rainbow

Penguin, 1973, 776 pages



Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern epic, a work as exhaustively significant to the second half of the 20th century as Joyce's Ulysses was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.


So much penis. And excrement. And drugs. And penis. Lots of penis. )

Also by Thomas Pynchon: My reviews of The Crying of Lot 49 and Inherent Vice.




My complete list of book reviews.
inverarity: (inverarity)
Hippie noir in 60s California.


Inherent Vice

The Penguin Press, 2009, 369 pages



Part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon.

Private eye Doc Sportello comes, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era as free love slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog.

It's been awhile since Doc has seen his ex-girlfriend. Suddenly, out of nowhere, she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with. Easy for her to say.

It's the tail end of the psychedelic sixties in L.A., and Doc knows that "love" is another of those words going around at the moment, like "trip" or "groovy", except that this one usually leads to trouble. Despite that, he soon finds himself drawn into a bizarre tangle of motives and passions whose cast of characters includes surfers, hustlers, dopers and rockers, a murderous loan shark, a tenor sax player working undercover, an ex-con with a swastika tattoo and a fondness for Ethel Merman, and a mysterious entity known as the Golden Fang, which may only be a tax dodge set up by some dentists....


The names are the best part: Shasta Fay Hepworth, Vincent Indelicato, Christian 'Bigfoot' Bjornsen, Petunia Leeway, Sledge Poteet, Leonard Jermaine Loosemeat... )

Verdict: Thomas Pynchon is very good, but despite some nice passages and memorable characters, I found it hard to keep track of all the plot threads in Inherent Vice. It's a funky but confusing novel with a kaleidoscope of characters and a noir plot on LSD.

Also by Thomas Pynchon: My review of The Crying of Lot 49.




My complete list of book reviews.
inverarity: (Default)
One-line summary: Alice goes down the rabbit hole in 1960s San Francisco.

trumpet cover

Reviews:

Goodreads: Average: 3.73. Mode: 4 stars.
Amazon: Average: 4.0. Mode: 5 stars (55%).


The highly original satire about Oedipa Maas, who is made the executor of the estate of her late boyfriend, Pierce Inverarity. As she diligently carries out her duties, Oedipa is enmeshed in what would appear to be a worldwide conspiracy, meets some extremely interesting characters, and attains a not inconsiderable amount of self knowledge.


Pynchon was post-modern before post-modern was cool )

Verdict: Not for everyone. Pynchon is clearly an acquired taste. But I liked this book when I was too young to get much of it, and I like it even more now that my horizons have expanded a bit. If you want a bite-sized sample of post-modernist literature, the kind that "English majors like talking about" as our violent negative reviewer put it (I am not an English major, btw, which is maybe why the hamsters in my brain had to work so hard while I was reading it), this one won't demand too much of your time, at least.

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