content: I read this in college and laughed quite a bit, so it was nice to find that the book remains as funny twenty years later. I read it on an airplane trip from Japan and laughed out loud at several points.What I didn't pick up twenty years ago was the book's generosity of spirit. America is a lonely place and Pynchon illustrates this isolation both through the conceit of the Trystero mail service and the gradual crack-up of his central character. All of his characters try to connect with something lasting but America's rootlessness frustrates them.An aura of 'specialness' surrounds Pynchon's books, as much for the reclusiveness of their author as for their own brilliance. Don't let this aura scare you away from what is, at base, a greathearted book.