Those kids are smarter than you.

I just feel bad for Baron.

“What’s worse, then feminism is called out as a fancy word for “selfish bitch” according to Jeremy, the idiot double murderer.”

That’s old old slang for masturbation.

I kept taking advanced math classes even though I was a theater major. Some people just have interests outside their focus.

If he was 2/3 through he’s at least 100 pages past both of the scat scenes.

Bleeding Edge’s problem is that it could have any three c-stories removed and be a better novel. 

And they’re a dollar from 2 to 5. Can’t beat that.

You don’t seem like a very smart person.

I’m not sure there’s a ‘definitive’ edition. All I have is my old worn out copy; it’s the Vintage International edition that I don’t think is still in print. Really the most important thing to think about when buying it is “do you want to carry this heavy book around or would you prefer it in paperback” and if the…

My grandma got two of recipes in the Long-Island-Jew-who-moved-to-Boca-Raton version of one of these, so she gave us all copies, and the recipes that weren’t boring were straight up nasty.

I once had an awkward exchange in the other direction. There’s this Lebanese deli/grocery store near where my parents live. The food is great and afterwards I can buy bulk bags of sumac and huge tubs of fresh-made toum for cheap, so I’m a fan of the place.

As someone who’s read it both with and without a guide, I can tell you that guide is more likely to just make it harder, because you’ll find yourself flipping back and forth between the two books making sure you’re catching every annotation and losing the flow of the book. It’s better to read it first and then go back…

The one that puzzles me a little is the adoptive parents one, but that’s mostly personal experience - my sisters are both adopted and they would never think of our mom as anything other than ‘mom.’

V. is my second favorite, after Against the Day.

To be fair, I think “no resolution” is one of the most elements points of Pynchon - the fact that there are people above you engaged in conspiracies of incredible consequence who think it’s presumptuous of their lessers to ask questions and that we don’t deserve answers.

“Telemachus” and “Nestor” are pretty easy, shit “Telemachus” is one of the funniest parts of the book, it’s just that “Proteus” is a fucking slog that won’t be matched again until the double-punch “Oxen of the Sun” and “Circe,” the latter of which I assume is deliberately written to disorient the reader to mirror…

I read The Magic Mountain for the bragging rights. I will never make myself do that again. I know I will keep coming back to Ulysses.

As I Lay Dying is pretty straightforward, once you get used to the multiple narrators, but Absalom, Absalom! does exist.

First time I was reading it I was 17 and on a train home from school, and I got approached by a Mormon missionary because converting Jews is, like, bonus points for Mormons. He asked me what I was reading, and I told him, “um.... it’s a book about a guy who has some errands to do.”