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The book is 760 pages. That’s slightly less than Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It is a standalone book, too, so no need to read a series of books t
by csb6 4y ago
The book is 760 pages. That’s slightly less than Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It is a standalone book, too, so no need to read a series of books to prepare (each of those could be 100s of pages as well!). In terms of plot-per-page, Pynchon is extremely efficient, if what you want is content. There are tons of characters and many subplots.
It certainly isn’t “thousands of pages” long. Novels are by definition long-form stories. If what you want is a short story, a novel is never going to be a good fit.
- the__alchemist 4y agoI don't think the page count is a good metric here. For me, to comprehend something like this, I have to read, pause, ponder "what is going on?", reread etc. Sentence by sentence. For something easier, I can read fluidly. As a contrast, picture Neal Stephenson novels. Long! But I can read them ~5x faster than an equiv length of GR.
- csb6 4y agoI agree, page count is a bad way to judge books. I was using the parent comment’s logic, which disparaged Pynchon for writing long novels and implied that long novels are less valuable.
- stuxnet79 4y agoI echo your point. Neal Stephenson is an equally deep thinker and leans into the hard-sci side of things but his prose is very lucid. Reading his works is less arduous than you expect. The more I read the more I grow to dislike unnecessarily elaborate writing.