Comment

Nov 09, 2013lukasevansherman rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
If not the greatest novelist of his generation (that goes to Philip Roth), the reclusive Thomas Pynchon may be the most influential, as he casts a shadow that falls over big guns like Don DeLillo, David Foster Wallace, William Gibson and Jonathan Lethem, among others. His latest opus, his 8th novel, takes on 9/11 and the the mood and events of the early '00s. Pynchon is nothing if not ambitious, but this ultimately falls flat and fails to make sense of the period, despite copious period details like the growth of the internet, the dotcom bubble, Keanu Reeves movies, Jay-Z and Nas, beanie babies and even "Friends." Yes, Thomas Pynchon, the writer of "Gravity's Rainbow" has put "Friends" in one of his books. And this is an odd, uneven mix of the whimsical and trivial with the tragic and grave. Pynchon's late style is strangely lighter and more superficial than in his earlier works. "The Trade Center tower were religious too. They stood for what this country worships above everything else, the market, always the holy f***in market."