Wait, wait, is it your first Pynchon?
Okay. The Crying of Lot 49 is very, very similar to BE and about a fourth of the length. I prefer BE because it uses a culture I'm more familiar with, but if you're looking for a taste test Lot 49 is it. All Pynchon is fundamentally the same. His characters are less characters for their own sake and more reflections of the atmosphere and surroundings in which they've been placed. He spent a long time in NYC so he's got a fantastic grasp on its idiosyncrasies -- and on top of that he somehow has his finger to the pulse of turn of the millennium dotcom culture. I love Manhattan and I grew up in the dotcom mess so I really, really loved BE. But if you're looking for answers and airtight plots and stuff Pynchon is the wrong novelist.
Ok, just finished BE and at this moment in time, I have to say that I'm probably not the reader Pynchon is pitching to. For me, this book was like taking a drive around the old neighborhood in a Mack truck, then falling asleep and realizing that someone has slipped me some acid. Did I like it? I don't know. There was so much stuff and I'm not sure why. Plots, subplots, all woven together, but I don't know what it makes. That doesn't really bother me. However, for a novel of this length and scope, I do expect to feel one way or another about it and I don't. That bothers me.
Yeah, okay. That's Pynchon for you. He's a bit like chaos theory fictionalized. And BE is about a thousand times more accessible than Gravity's Rainbow.Did I like it? I don't know. There was so much stuff and I'm not sure why. Plots, subplots, all woven together, but I don't know what it makes. That doesn't really bother me. However, for a novel of this length and scope, I do expect to feel one way or another about it and I don't. That bothers me.
It's like a French movie from the 1960's, kind of. You should read it so we can compare notes on it. It's not a novel in the conventional sense and it doesn't land on major chords, so to speak. It's sort of akin to The Unbearable Lightness of Being in that the reader is aware of the artifice and construction of the book around the experience of the reader. I'd like to read something else by Calvino to get a better bead on him as a writer.