I haven't read him through, Vineland has so far escaped me and I've tried several times at Gravity's Rainbow and can't hang with it. I think Gravity's Rainbow suffers too much from Marijuana's Gravity Field.
But when TP is on his game, he is awesome. Mason & Dixon is easily the best historical fiction ever written. No, don't tell me about some other writer who did this or that, Leon Yuris or James Michener, bullshit. Give me Colonel Washington smoking pot with Mason & Dixon with a step-n-fetch-it slave (who owns nightclubs). Give me Ben Franklin playing the glass harmonica in a coffeehouse, complete with blue-tinted spectacles. Give me a Cabalistic Jew who parts his fingers down the middle in the ancient sign for Live Long and Prosper.
In fairness, M&D is written in 1760s period language, and without a subscription to the OED Online, I couldn't have done it. This newest book is also a historical fiction piece, but presumably the language of 1893 won't be quite as hard for modern ears to follow.
It's a hefty read, though. A record even for Pynchon. I mean, The Crying of Lot 49 is one of the best novellas ever, but mainly with TP you get lots of pages. I think, though, this is the first time he's broken the 1,000 page mark.
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