We Don't Get Everything, but Some People Do

Stephen Douglas Mahoney makes an excellent point about Against the Day:

Pynchon's so-called pretension has a point: the point is "that's life".  We don’t get everything, but some people do.  The fact that some people get quaternions, while others might get the West Ham United references, and others still might get the musical speak, etc. mirrors the conversations of our day.  You can get as many or as few of these stories as you do, but you are still in the story.

I've often felt this, but could never articulate it. Pynchon aims to present a picture of the world - both real and imagined - in all of its absurd complexity. It contains too much because life contains too much. Pynchon's genius is to - occasionally - find form to all this "too much", most famously in Gravity's Rainbow.

With this in mind, Against the Day isabsolutely fascinating.