I love everything about Pynchon except reading his books. I think he's a very interesting man with many curious ideas, but I kind of feel like there's this colossal joke being played on me every time I attempt to finish one of his tomes. I've attempted to read Gravity's Rainbow maybe six or seven times now, and I just can't finish it. I love the beginning-- A screaming comes across the sky is just a beautiful way to begin a story. I follow Prentice through the banana breakfast, and meet Slothrop, and then I find myself reading the same paragraph a few times and then I'm somewhere else, in a different time perhaps, and someone else is talking, and I don't know who it is or what's going on.

It's like having someone lead you to a place where true magic can happen, and then suddenly being bit on the nose by an ostrich. It's unexpected, it's unpleasant, and I don't understand why I can't seem to enjoy it like the others who have participated before me.

I have read DFW and enjoyed Infinite Jest a good deal, and I don't consider that light reading-- but I just can't seem to find my groove when reading Pynchon.