The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon ------------------- 1.5 Stars

I've been aware of Thomas Pynchon's writing for a while now but have not read any of this books. I felt it was worthwhile to give one of his books a chance and the general consensus was The Crying of Lot 49 was the most accessible, shortest, and easiest one to get started with. Well, as you can guess from my rating, it'll be my last of his novels too.

So, Pynchon is quite popular (this book holds a rating of 4.1 out of 5 on Amazon) and his books have been made into major motion pictures. I was aware going in that they were a bit nontraditional. I had a sense that they might feel a bit drug induced and paranoia centered. I also understood that they had bizarre characters, odd plots, and some very long, difficult to read prose. Well, he checked all those boxes and more.

I could try to describe the plot though I am not sure I truly understood most of what was going on. The story's protagonist was a woman who was looking into a mystery that may (or may not) be actually taking place regarding an underground mail system (yeah, like USPS). If it sounds like an odd premise for the book, it is. It was sprawling, and unclear, and boring and bizarre and occasionally funny, though I can safely say I enjoyed very little of it. 

When I was reading it reminded me of two authors I've read before. First, one that came to mind was David Foster Wallace, who I adore. About 10 years ago I powered through Infinite Jest (review here) which this book reminded me of. Of course, Foster Wallace came after Pynchon and I'm sure was inspired or at least affected by his books as there is a craziness and divergence of plot in Infinite Jest that seemed so similar. However, I could follow and truly enjoyed those oddities with Foster Wallace. The other person it reminded me of was James Ellroy, whom I've only read once (review here) but had a similar manic, all over the place type of storytelling.

In this book's defense, I did some Wikipedia research and Reddit deep dives to understand what I missed. Which, apparently, was massive amounts. But, I guess that's my point. If I need a bunch of other people to explain to me the vast majority of what the book is about I just read, that's not good. I guess Pynchon's goal was also to leave the reader guessing, and confused, and frustrated to help illuminate how the main character felt. Well, in that case, job well done!

It's a shame I couldn't enjoy this more. I really did give it my best and tried to appreciate the bright spots, especially as I hoped to read some of his other works. But, I really just found myself so frustrated and disengaged. Oh well, at least it was short, and I learned more about what sort of books I like and which ones I don't. Clearly throwing this one in the don't like category!

The Ending Writes Itself - Evelyn Clarke -------------- 3.5 Stars

This book came out a few months ago and was recommended in The New York Times as one of the better mysteries of the year. I was able to access it pretty easily at the library and thought I should check it out based on that description. Well, it was an okay experience, but I didn't find myself reveling in The Ending Writes Itself.

On a positive, this was a super quick read that really was quite engaging and kept me interested through most of the novel. I won't get too much into the plot, though I would say it was a good one, and the book went from better to worse, then slowly better again in the last few chapters. Similar to the book And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, a bunch of people ended up on an island, though in this case they were writers trying to help ensure a famous story had the perfect ending.

The characters were fine, though I thought it was odd the way the book was written as you got a lot of action going on in real time and then quick flashbacks to round out the characters. Unfortunately, I really found myself not connecting or caring about any of the characters and found the flashbacks to be odd, not interesting, and/or too short.

As mentioned, the story did keep a good pace and the short chapters and occasional cliffhangers made me want to continue reading. It was a decent mystery that I really didn't know what was going on and there were multiple useful distractions. This made it more interesting to pay attention to and kept the pages turning.

Ultimately, while I thought the ending was interesting and it had a typical you think it's over and then one more twist happens, because I was so disinterested in the characters and unmotivated by them, I just wasn't satisfied by the ending. Again, decent read and certainly helps pass the time, but I doubt anyone finish this book and think it's anything close to And Then There Were None.