This was a re-read for me; this book is consistently amazing. This time around I noticed a greater melancholy in the story, as though the conspiracy inside was both something desired (to make the world make sense) and something feared (because of a loss of control). ( )

Pop goes the weasel! Pynchon's 1960s California-paranoia story of odd names, fractured plot and multiple conspiracy theories is soaked in clever allusion and hieroglyphic metaphor, but never really leads to anything. Indeed, frustration is obviously the point, as this clown-car drama full of interconnected but ultimately unresolved inquiries never arrives at a meaningful pattern but simply cuts to black.

Pynchon artfully distances us from character, plot and emotion - one assumes as an act of dislocating our own deluded efforts to make sense of this complex and chaotic world, and allowing us to feel instead the disorientation and anxiety inherent in a 'post-modern' society, where communication of all kinds is unreliable, uncertain or unfinished despite our efforts to systematise it.

Pynchon packs a lot of sophisticated and tantalising signposting into a short novella, and you can see why armies of smart fans enjoy parsing the under-determined semiotics of Pynchon. But in the end, all the highways in his Golden State lead to the same unrequited longing for answers. ( )

Despite its short length, this was a very complex and clever book. It really stretched my reading capacity. ( )

The original mystery novel for hipsters.

I recognized a lot of elements that I should have enjoyed, but I just didn't enjoy them. I do appreciate how the story unfolded and ended. There just wasn't a connection, I guess. ( )