by Writer X

Pynchon’s lat­est doorstop, Against The Day is cor­rupt work. It has the ir­re­sistible ef­fect of turn­ing smart men stupid.

It all be­gan when Flaubert O’Leary, flushed and breath­less, burst in­to the Mi­nor Geld­ing: “I bought the Pyn­chon!” he shrieked.

O’Leary blud­geoned us for a sol­id week with cease­less re-tellings of The Pur­chas­ing of The Pyn­chon, an act akin to cur­ing can­cer. He phys­i­cal­ly com­pelled a trem­bling cashier at Bor­ders to au­to­graph his re­ceipt: Con­grats. Ashley.

Next up: “I start­ed the Pyn­chon!” For fif­teen days, hap­pi­ness was be­smirched by dai­ly, hour-long syn­opses, de­liv­ered in sten­to­ri­an tones, strewn with deaf­en­ing self-ag­gran­dize­ments, bor­ing as hell, all thick­ly frost­ed with flam­boy­ant ges­tic­u­la­tions, fly­ing sali­va, and the laugh­ter of the insane.

“I’m read­ing the Pyn­chon!” O’Leary would sud­den­ly an­nounce, apro­pos of noth­ing and to no-one in par­tic­u­lar. He did it alone in the car. He baf­fled to tears an ado­les­cent cashier at Spangles.

O’Leary then sur­ren­dered whol­ly to the Pyn­chon. The P Time, he calls it. He locked his door and re­fused in­vi­ta­tions to din­ner: “I’m with the Pyn­chon!” he barked through the in­ter­com. He threw his cell phone out the win­dow. He did not bathe.

A week of peace. Peo­ple drift­ed back to the Gelding.

Then, in­evitably: “I fin­ished the Pyn­chon!” An islet rose from a Malaysian sea. And too, the com­mence­ment of a tor­rent of crit­i­cal blah-blah-blah, a Nile of dorky, pseu­do-in­tel­lec­tu­al, corn-stud­ded mind-vom­it that surges yet unchecked, stinking.

Of course, O’Leary now per­ceives the world as in­hab­it­ed by on­ly two kinds of peo­ple: those who have read the Pyn­chon, and trash. He’s mur­der at parties.

Damn the Pynchon!

Filed under Books on February 3rd, 2007

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