After several weeks of slogging I finally finished Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon earlier today.  ‘Slogging’ makes it sound like I didn’t enjoy myself when I did greatly – large portions of the book were astoundingly beautiful, but at no point during the entire 776-pages ws my reading anything less than challenging, so I’m keeping ‘slogging’ and I’ll hear no guff on the topic.  I feel now like I sometimes feel when I drink a thick German beer – say some bulging, viscous Dopplebock – I’m more proud of having finished the thing than I am happy with the enjoyment it brought to me.  The analogy fails at some point – I enjoyed Pynchon far more than I like German beer (in fact I like the thick, oily versions of the latter so little I won’t even crack one in celebration) – but in both cases simply finishing is a workout.