Daniel Tidcombe’s Reviews > Shadow Ticket > Status Update

Respect that you are going through all of Pynchon (I have yet to read bc I am intimidated by its difficult reputation)

Pynchon does have a reputation as a “difficult author” but I think that mostly derives from his three longest works, “Gravity’s Rainbow,” “Mason & Dixon,” and “Against the Day.” (having not read the latter two I can only assume that it’s because of the painstaking lengths Pynchon went through to emulate late 18th century diction in M&D and the sheer length (1,000+ pages) of AtD). GR asks a lot of the reader, but I feel like once one gets a grasp of the general rhythms of Pynchon’s prose, his works become easier to digest. I’d recommend starting with his shortest work, “The Crying of Lot 49” to get a feel for his general style, but I also believe his 3 most recent works (“Inherent Vice,” “Bleeding Edge,” and “Shadow Ticket”) are all still distinctly Pynchon while not necessarily being “difficult”.

Good to know. I'll be sure to check him out because I plan on reading more of the postmodern difficult books real soon (like "Infinite Jest"...oh boy).