Wow.

Wow wow wow.

I lived through the late nineties Silicon Alley phenomenon when it felt like it was falling apart (my first company changed from a Systems to a Solutions to a Razorfish in the span of a year), and Pynchon did an excellent job of capturing it. The book was people with the usual Pynchon-esque conspiracies, bagfuls of characters, genuinely laugh-out-loud moments, and touching come downs, as well.

I actually enjoyed Pynchon’s take on 11 September, as well as the craziness of some of those Silicon Alley days, but it’s just how Pynchon writes so effortlessly, I love lines like:

“Scrutinizing, as if for evidence of occupancy, a cheese danish he has impulsively bought.”

“If you were doing something in secret and didn’t want the attention, what better way to have it ridiculed and dismissed than bring in a few Californian elements?”

Some of the lines are cheesy, like “Maxine could run workshops in Conquering Eyeroll,” but even in those you get the sense of a man completely happy in what he’s doing, which is writing a breathtaking novel which speeds along through the Upper West Side and a changing New York City.

At any rate, I loved this book, laughed out loud a lot while I was reading it, and enjoyed Mr. Pynchon’s take on early 2000s New York City.