 Hello everybody, E here. Welcome back to another book review. Today we are talking about Thomas Pensions, The Crying of Lot 4-9. I read this book over the course of a day, less than 24 hours, multiple sittings, but it was a lot of fun to read. I go ahead and tell you right now I didn't understand probably half the book. This is one of those books that I read. I enjoyed reading. I loved reading it. I'm going to give it four stars. But I didn't understand all of it. The parts that I enjoyed the most were anything with the fictional band, The Paranoids. That was a lot of fun. Another thing that I really, really enjoyed happens very early on in the book. I believe it is the second chapter, third chapter. It's the first rather long chapter in the book. There's only six chapters. It's only 150 pages. But there's a scene where he's describing a play and the acts of that play. As someone who is a huge fan of stories within stories, I just kind of got whisked away into this. It may not even been a play I might have enjoyed. It was just the way he told me about the play that was very awesome. I thought it was really, really cool. Now my history with Pension is kind of muddied in that I tried Gravity's Rainbow and I ended up quitting it. Me and Shell were reading it together. I was reading it aloud to her. And it just wasn't one of those books that felt like I should be reading it aloud. It's not a book that really lends well to that. And Pension is not an author that lends well. I don't think he lends well to audiobooks. I tried two of his audiobooks and I quit both of them. He's an author you really need to sit down with the text and analyze what is going on. Now I looked up several, there is some discussion to be had. At what point is it the author's fault that the reader does not understand the content? At what point do we draw the line and say okay just because he knows what the book is about doesn't mean that anyone is going to be able to find out what the book is about. That was one interpretation, that was one criticism that I found especially intriguing. Is Pension sitting there laughing at everybody going the book's really not about much of shit. I'm just enjoying these scenes. He's a fantastic writer. He's probably one, I would say he's in the top five best technical writers I've ever come across. Because he will just completely lose train of thought and go off into this meandering diatribe about the play. And I'm sure that there's some significance in the book concerning the play. But it just seems like it just comes out of nowhere and has nothing to do with anything, especially that early on in the book. And I was utterly fascinated by how well it was written and how well it was told. It's one of those books you just get lost in the language. So if you're not a reader that enjoys, it's not pretty language. It's not pretty by any means. It's just very well constructed to the point that it is immensely readable like most thrillers. I feel and this is by no means a slight on Thomas Pension. I feel the book is as easy if not easier to read than something like let's say a James Patterson or Dan Brown or anybody with very simple writing that's just trying to get a story across. It's deceptively simple in that it is easy to read but it is intellectually dense. You can puzzle over some of these paragraphs for quite some time. Now my other history with Thomas Pension is the only reason he even came across my radar or post-modernism period came across my radar is because I was not taking a Yale course. But I was doing Yale, the University of Yale has free classes online on YouTube where you can sit and watch, of course you can't interact because they're old videos. But there's one for American literature I believe it was and they do Black Boy by, I can never remember the author, Black Boy, Lolita. I ended up stopping at Lolita. I didn't care to continue after that because a lot of things that the instructor was talking about didn't have any bearing on me as an author or where I was trying to go. I'm not someone who completely uses flowery language. There's a time and a place for that stuff but the way she was teaching it was more about the language and the beauty of the writing and I realized that with Lolita so I stopped watching the class. But I'm going to link you to the class. The very first episode has a syllabus and the crying of Lot 49 is I believe the 12th episode. I just got through watching it again and again. I didn't understand even what she was talking about. So I went and found some other people like the book chemist. If you don't know the book chemist and you're into postmodernism or literary fiction you definitely need to check him out. I'll leave a link down there in the doobly-doo. I went over and watched his stuff. He gave a lot of tips and pointers on how to do it and I also watched a chapter by chapter breakdown. I'm still not 100% certain that I caught some of the themes that they say were going on. There was one reviewer that I checked into that said that the book is about paranoia. But at the same time he said is it really paranoia if they're actually after you. So I found that interesting. The book revolves around a plot that... It's kind of like edifice, but edipa kind of deal. Edipa, Mass or Maas which is funny her husband's nickname is Mucho Maas. Anyways, but it's a stupid joke. But the story revolves around her possibly uncovering a secret organization called Tristero, something like that. And she keeps finding their symbol which is the horn all over the place. And one of the things that Ryan talked about in his review... I'm not even sure if Ryan is still making videos so I don't know whether or not to direct you over there. I think it's Ryan loves to read. But he said one of the things that he caught on to very early was a sense that is it really a conspiracy theory if it's true, that kind of thing. So I didn't catch the vibe that he caught, but again I could be completely wrong because I will fully admit I didn't understand this book. But that does not mean that I was not completely infatuated with the way it was written. I'm going to give Pinchin another try. The book chemist says Inherent Vice is the next place to go and I am an owner of Inherent Vice. Unfortunately it is a movie tie-in cover, but it was a quarter. But it is also dusty as I don't know what. No, it's not. That's actually the cover. That's really cool. But I'm going to give this one a try next. I would love to hear from anyone who's read a lot of Pinchin that is level-headed and down to earth. When you get to this point of literature with folks like Pinchin and David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen and kind of that intellectual white dude crew, you tend to get very stern opinions and you tend to get a lot of jackasses. I don't mind bookstops, but they're usually on the jerkier side. So if you are willing to talk to me and willing to maybe at times explain to me as if I'm a five-year-old while not treating me like a five-year-old, I would appreciate it. As far as recommending this book, I'm not going to recommend it to anyone. I don't know a single person that I know personally who would enjoy the book. And all the people who I think would enjoy the book have already read the book. Unfortunately, most people I know either didn't like it or didn't understand it either. So I'm not the type of person that runs around in intellectual circles. I do like educating myself and that kind of thing, but I'm by no means like a scholar or anything like that. I did enjoy the book and that's kind of where I'm going to leave it. I'm giving it four stars just because the readability of it is so damn high. Readability is too damn high? No. But anyways, so again, have you read this book? Let me know down there in the comments below. If you disagree with inherent vice being the next one I should read, definitely let me know that. I'm not going back to Gravity's Rainbow until I have a couple of his books underneath my belt. But until next time, I have been E, you have been U, this has been another book review. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye!