Are Pynchon and Dickens essentially the same writer? Alan Jacobs notes, “The Pynchonian and the Dickensian projects have a great deal in common [big rambling eventful tragicomic books featuring outlandish characters with comical names], and as time goes on I think it will become more and more clear that there is something truly old-fashioned about Pynchon’s career.”
Jacobs says Pynchon’s style appears to be to write long, complex books about people who don’t read long books at all. His characters are caught up in the Interwebs, the TeleVision, and commercial products of all types. He says Pynchon may be driving at a warning: let the non-reader beware.
I’ve never actually read Pynchon before. Mostly because I already have a large backlog of books and it would take a high endorsement from people whose taste I trust to really get me to bump something up the list. That said, if someone has a suggestion about his work I would hear them out.