My reading begins shortly after a second reading of Mason and Dixon (I first read M&D in 1999, I believe). And I now wish I had taken notes, or at least scribbled thoughts during that second reading.
So I'm hoping to do better with AtD.
Somehow I've missed most of the reviews. I read one in the Boston Globe perhaps in November -- it was alright but seemed to me to overplay the identification of Pynchon with some sort of "sixties-ness"; that identification seems to trivialize matters, and it grates on me. I enjoyed the review of Michael Moorcock that I just found -- linked by a poster to the Chumps' blog. That review appeared in the Daily Telegraph, and in part MM writes:
Against the Day is a fine example of successful marriage between the popular and the intellectual, between fiction and science.
...
Aldiss, Burroughs, Ballard and Vonnegut predicted, long ago in the 60s, that the arts and sciences would be reunited in speculative fiction, that the novel would not die if it could rediscover vulgarity.
Gloriously, demandingly, daringly Pynchon has rediscovered vulgarity...
