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• eric - Mar 29 2007 | news, Tournament of Books, Thomas Pynchon, Cormac McCarthy, thepugetnews

  So now it really is official, Thomas Pynchon's "Against the Day" is permanently out of the Tournament of Books and has claimed yet another another reading victim. 3 out of 4 of the people assigned to read the book didn't even finish it. That's not exactly a fair shake when you're an author notorious for exploding the form of contemporary fiction. I think the judges need to make it all the way through before they can weigh the books on the merits of their scope of vision and achievement.

  At least Pynchon finally "lost" to a good challenger. I really plan on reading that Cormac McCarthy book later this year.
• eric - Mar 27 2007 | thepugetnews, Thomas Pynchon, Tournament of Books

  In today's Tournament of Books, Thomas Pynchon's novel was defeated by a reader who chose to go no further than 300 pages. While I'm disappointed in the number of people who are unable to finish any of Thomas Pynchon's novels - I think most people bail on far too many things that they consider difficult - I do at least appreciate Sasha's reasoning.

  Quoted: I take no pleasure in being defeated by Pynchon, and I don’t think he’s full of hot air; I just think we have very different pleasure principles.

  Alas, the tournament is over for me. I care not a single whit about any of the books left.
• eric - Mar 23 2007 | books, Thomas Pynchon, The Morning News, Tournament of Books, thepugetnews

  Pynchon's "Against the Day" just made it past round 2 of "The Morning News" Tournament of Books. He'll be going to the semi-finals in this completely arbitrary but fun tournament.

  Quoted: As for Against the Day, I do intend to finish it, perhaps even by the end of this month. Some of it is kind of boring. Some of it is astonishing. When the narration shifts into heavy scare-quote mode, it can get a tad annoying, and some of the exercises in pastiche (detective novel, adventure tale, scientific journal) work better than others. But Thomas Pynchon is a master and when he is on—by which I mean when his riffs achieve the right balance of the arcane, the modern, the scary, and the hilarious—there is no way the mildly interesting, failed experiment of a younger writer is going to compete. Alentejo Blue is about Monica Ali resisting pigeonholes, sussing out what her voice sounds like now. Against the Day is about many things, including the recurring collision of science, politics, terror, and the imagination in our history. Yes, the book jumps around crazily, the threads seem to disintegrate in thin air. The trick is to consider this its nature, one that affords many other delights, rather than the novel’s flaw. Finally, though there are some flat moments in Against the Day, Pynchon never writes, as Ali does in her much shorter novel: “The sky was so blue it hurt.” At least he hasn’t so far. Check in with me next month.
• lucidflame - May 22 2008