The time that it took me to read this book would normally allowed me to read several books, but I found that I had difficulties finding the time to read it. Not that there wasn't time, but that I was allocating that time to other things.
I think that the key part of my issue with the book is that it didn't live it up to its potential. This book had great promise of being a kind of strangely silly WWII story; a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy but set on Earth in the 40's. In the beginning, it gives you some hints that perhaps that is where it is going. It is not going there, it is going some place far, far stranger and less enjoyable.
In the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that I read a New York Times review of the book before I started writing this. Normally, I try to avoid reading reviews until after I write mine (a small part of the reasons for this blogs existence is that I rarely fully agree with a review). However, this book was nominated for and won several awards and just narrowly missed getting a Pulitzer and I was worried that by disliking it I was missing some fundamental part. The New York Times article's author obviously had a better time than I did but it was still rather critical of the book and I think that some of the points that he made are very valid. (For the curious, here is the review: http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-rainbow.html )
In short, the book tries to be an expansive in depth story, but it almost collapses under its own weight. There are so many characters that don't make sense and seem pointless, so many plot threads that remain basically unresolved, so many resolutions that are at best strange and at worse unsatisfactory. This book is more than 700 pages and I feel like it might have done better to be 200 pages longer and perhaps divided up into a few of books to better allow the characters a more coherent story.
A special note on one of the resolutions. One mystery in particular, the 00000 rocket, is brought up again and again throughout the book and it resolution, when it finally arrives, is so strange and so anticlimactic that it does not do itself justice.
One other thing that I did not like was the sex. I am by no means a prude but the sex in this book was, frankly, ridiculous. It is not so much the quantity as the general types. There are is the B, the D, the S, and the M from BDSM, urine, pedophilia, orgies, and the only sex scene I have ever read with feces. I have not had that much trouble reading any single scene since the scene in Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho where the main character kills a hobo very graphically.
This book is not entirely bad. The second of the four parts is quite an enjoyable read (though it does randomly drop a bunch of plots from the first part) and it really explores the levels of paranoia that, somewhat ridiculously, seem justified. I am also generally glad to read award winning books because I like to see what kind of books win awards. This book was a bit of a slog but I am glad that I read it.
Overall, I would give this book a 70%.
Who would have given such a horrible book as a Christmas gift, of all things?! What sort of literary sickos are you associating with??
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