Posted by Sterling on 17/6/2009, 1:06:19, in reply to "Re: The Crying of Lot 49 and what else I'm reading"
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Guillermo, the question of recommending a place to start with Pynchon is harder than one might think. The conventional wisdom would be either The Crying of Lot 49 (the shortest) or Gravity's Rainbow (his most celebrated novel). You might compare this to James Joyce. If you were asked to recommend a place to start, would you recommend A Portrait of the Artist or Ulysses?
Of the other novels, there's V., which is his first and which I have not read for many years. There's Vineland, which apparently only Salman Rushdie and I like. There's Mason & Dixon, which I understand is Harold Bloom's favorite, but probably the one I like least, and there's Against the Day. I enjoyed it, but it's huge and probably not the place to begin.
So, I'd have to say either The Crying of Lot 49 or possibly Vineland. Or you could wait for August and see if his new "psychedelic noir" Inherent Vice turns out to be good.
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