Last year, I watched One Battle After Another in theater. It was Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2025 film inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland.
Honestly? I walked out.
As Peter Griffin would say, “It insists upon itself.”
The movie tried way too hard to turn Pynchon’s dense style into a big philosophical puzzle. It felt all over the place. It just didn’t work for me.
Some books were never meant to become movies.
That said, Thomas Pynchon is still one of the most fascinating writers alive today.
So why did I start reading him? Because he seemed relevant for the times we live in.
I first picked up his most famous book, Gravity’s Rainbow, years ago. Terrence McKenna recommended it. McKenna said Pynchon’s writing “usually scares the shit out of your moral self.”
So I went down the rabbit hole so you wouldn’t have to.
Leave a Reply