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Welcome to Zero to Well Read, a podcast about everything you need to know about the books

you wish you'd read. I'm Jeff O'Neill. And I'm Rebecca Shinsky. Get ready to get weird today.

We are exploring Vineland by Thomas Pynchon, the 1990 novel that inspired Paul Thomas Anderson's

new film, One Battle After Another. Before we jump in, though, if you're enjoying the show so

far, and we sure hope you are, we would love it if you'd share it with friends, or really if you'd leave us a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you are listening right now. Thanks so much for supporting the show as we get started.

Yeah, believe it or not, that matters, Rebecca, as people find the show.

Today, boy, we've got, we've got one today. Pension for a lot of people who know something about literary history of the late 20th century into the 21st now, since he's still

cooking and there's actually a new Pension novel coming out in October, is kind of one of those

white whales, to quote another aspirational those white whales to quote another aspirational

read or to reference another aspirational people have. Pynchon is very hard to approach.

I'm not going to sugarcoat it to anybody. I think there's many pleasures to be had there,

but I am not going to say that it is, actually, it's really easy to get into.

This is reading as work, and it's not all work. It's not all a slog. But Rebecca, this is

high-level reading. This is high-level writing. This is serious business here. It's what the kids

would call brain on reading.

Yeah, and maybe get some other brains. You need several brains going at the same?

Yeah, in several ways. This was my first experience with Pension. And, you know, I'm not one to shy away from a difficult reading experience, but the vibe I had picked up about what made Pension challenging to get into was not a vibe that I, like, I'm particularly drawn to in my reading life.

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