From an article on Thomas Pynchon comes this description of a fan.
Tim Ware, who runs the Web site thomaspynchon.com from Oakland, Calif., recalls having a hard time getting through “Gravity’s Rainbow,” at least the first time around.
“I went back and looked again at the first page and everything just sort of snapped into view, and I thought, ‘This guy is a genius,’ like those who walked the Earth in the 19th century,” says Ware.
“And I got rather messianic about it, and I wanted my wife to read it. I started creating an index of all the characters, because there were so many and it was so hard to keep track of them.”
Maybe this is the wrong day for me to read something like this, but with so much going on in our shrinking world, giving yourself to the ardent fandom of Thomas Pynchon seems like a waste.
I’ve truly tried to read Gravity’s Rainbow. More than a half dozen attempts later, I still can’t get past the first fifty pages.
Mr. Fandom must think me a moron.
I like the “genius like those who walked the Earth in the 19th century” comment. Isn’t Einstein the posterboy for Genius? He lived mostly in the 20th century. Maybe he wasn’t as brilliant as those 19th century boys.