I go back and forth on this one. Sometimes to take a break I consider one of those two Vs. Foster Wallace.

I want to like Pynchon for some reason unbeknownst to me but I can't come anywhere close to getting through Against the Day and I've tried about 5 times.

Haven't read any Pynchon yet. A lot of people have warned me of how difficult he is to read, but I have no problem with David Foster Wallace so I think I should be okay.

Pychon reminds me of John Barth, in that if you start with the early novels like The Crying of Lot 49, the prose isn't especially difficult, although divining a point to it is. It's Gravity's Rainbow where Pynchon gets dense, and then it's really a matter of rhythm - once I found that, it became hypnotic.

I have never been able to make headway with Dos Passos' United States.

I wrote an essay on 'Lot 49' as an undergad. I wish I could track it down and post it here. Something about the connection between the Tristero's Mail conspiracy and a Male conspiracy. And Posthorn being a phallic pun (Post-horn = after the domination of the penile).

lots of masturbating itt.