In yet another mark of my lack of sophistication, I have to confess to only ever having read two Pynchon novels. And what’s worse, they’re his two shortest. Spaced about twenty years apart, there was quite a lot of anticipation involved both before starting The Crying of Lot 49 as an undergraduate and, now, Pynchon’s latest, Shadow Ticket . On both occasions, I was left disappointed, and for the same
