You are so insane. Best. Book. Ever.

I wear it with pride, Plei. Bored me to tears. I gave up 100 pages in, making it one of the very few books I hated enough to not finish reading (the only other one, in fact, that I can think of offhand was Where The Heart Is, which my mother-in-law insisted I read -- I'm not sure how far I got into that one before my brain threatened to turn off my pleasure center forever if I didn't just stop).

So, I've almost finished a re-read of Pynchon's Vineland, which, while not his best book, is criminally underrated. Although it's his most linear book (despite the fact that it switches back-and-forth through time and across perspectives with slippery ease), it's a dead-on prescient parody of Ashcroft's concepts of justice and a sharp look at the fascism of desire and the legacy of the 1960s.

I should re-read Vineland too--the only thing I remember about it is "The Italian Wedding Fake Book by Deleuze and Guattari".

That cracked me up. Actually, I'd forgotten how generally funny Vineland is. I've yet to read a long stretch without finding a hilarious little gem.

I love Wharton like a mad thing, but I do think Ethan Frome is more effective than sominex for sleep-making. Dull and dreary.

I'm a Dickens heretic; I have the feeling he was ruined for me forever because I read him while I was reading James Joyce and boy oh boy, give me Joyce any day, with the linguistic stoner freefall and the poetry and the glayvin...

Deb is me -- I love Wharton (The Age of Innocence is one of my favorite books) but Ethan Frome, to be blunt, sucked. On the other hand, I loved Bartleby. Something very endearing about him.

My sister loves Ethan Frome. Loves loves loves. Of course, she also adores Henry James.

I suspect sometimes that we are not actually related, our identical eyes and voices notwithstanding.

Re: Life of Pi, thanks to Hil and Megan for articulating the feeling the book left me with. I preferred one version over the other, and I do think 'twas the point. I really did enjoy the bit about Pi's triple religion. It seemed such a Buffista approach to understanding the spiritual.

I am not certain that someone who loves Ethan Frome and Henry James could be the same species as I am.

I've never been able to get through Walden. It has the Sominex effect on me. I guess I should work, huh. I miss dropping in on Buffistas and hanging out, then going to visit Van Gogh or Renoir. sigh.

I did love The Turn of the Screw. But then again, I'm all for ghost stories.