Idk, but that book was — not at all interesting to me.
For me, the bits of story in between the food talk were interesting. But I simply don’t have the patience for hearing people describe food for 70% of the book. Call me anhedonic or whatever, but I just don’t find food that interesting and I don’t think much about it.
Nice word! I had to look that up! 
Looks interesting
This is some weird shit:
A trip down nostalgia lane if not gin alley, as though I haven’t drank in some time, this compilation of three short guides containing recipes and opinion pieces (one book being a collection of newspaper columns) from a man who knows his booze and has definite ideas about what to drink & what to mix with it, was quite amusing (if a bit ill-advised reading fare for a former alcoholic). Kingsley was the stuff of legends: after cranking out the obligatory 500 words per day in the morning (or afternoon if he was too hungover), he then proceeded to the real business of the day - cocktail hour, with a strong preference for gin. Near the end of his life he was allegedly spending £1,000 per month on Bombay Sapphire. Yet his reliable work ethic kept him cranking out a steady flow of novels and essays every year, until the demon drink finally got him at the ripe old pickled age of 73. Introduction by fellow drinking legend and best mate of his son Martin, Christopher Hitchens.
Cucumber juice?
Rainy day yesterday left me an opportunity to finish this. Once you swim to the surface of the paranoia and conspiracy currents, it’s quite funny. I have Gravity’s Rainbow and his new one lined up but before that I’m gonna research some articles written connecting TCOL49 with Wittgenstein’s work on language games and communication due to the obvious similarities.
Suffused with rich satire, chaotic brilliance, verbal turbulence and wild humor, The Crying of Lot 49 opens as Oedipa Maas discovers that she has been made executrix of a former lover’s estate. The performance of her duties sets her on a strange trail of detection, in which bizarre characters crowd in to help or confuse her. But gradually, death, drugs, madness, and marriage combine to leave Oedipa in isolation on the threshold of revelation, awaiting the Crying of Lot 49.
New for my list thanks.
I went into each chapter prepped by AI summarizations, and asked questions along the way, plot, arcs, overall thematic devices and toward the end connections to Wittgenstein.
There’s a lot of myopic focus on stuff that seems to distract as though TP wrote in inside jokes to mess with the reader.
Doing so didn’t diminish the narrative flow at all.
Enjoy.
Pynchon’s a bit like what would be produced if Samuel Adams and Groucho Marx had a child who later studied under Vladimir Nabakov and Kurt Godel. Something like that.
I think The Crying of Lot 49 was a minor effort by a major writer. But it’s the book that gets the most attention because it’s short enough to be assigned in a college course. OTOH, I have yet to get far into Mason & Dixon, so I must admit I’m not immune to the appeal of novellas.
Gravity’s Rainbow, though a bit murky in parts, is about as good as it gets. It absolutely blew me away.
I think 49 is a bit easier to understand, like V. Or Vineland— once you make it through the noise and distraction.
GR is something I attempted 30 years ago, but lacked the focus to plod through. Same with Infinite Jest from DFW.
These days, it’s a different story. 
49 would be a great TV series.
Surprisingly, it ended up winning! But I agree that the book is quite soporific.
It’s so exotic!!
so they nailed it
there’s a picnic table that might disagree
At the garbage disposal in our building, we spotted a large box with children’s books, like 50 of them. Took them upstairs and now I will read one every day until I have read them all, to improve my Chinese reading skills (mainly trying to perfect the four tones for all common characters). In the meantime, our 7-year old politely declines the offer to fill his little brain with book knowledge, instead opting to watch Grand Theft Auto with Chinese commenatry on Youtube…