Not quite finished it yet- 75 pages or so to go- but I'm finding it a lot of fun and genuinely hilarious. I can see why Pynchonites aren't really taking to it, though: it's a novel almost entirely without subtext, unless "Surf's up on the '60s" counts. I'm just imagining it as the product of a meeting of minds between Dashiell Hammett and Elmore Leonard, rather than the guy who wrote Gravity's Rainbow, and it's reading a lot better. The Coen connection makes sense, too. I guess it's got a doper's sense of plotting:- constant deus ex machinas, Leo always finding his next lead straight after exhausting the old one, every female being hot and horny, the story just kinda floating along. Most of those criticisms actually make the book kinda endearing to me. And you can always just concentrate on Pynchon's wordplay if those things start to get a bit grating.

Also, shallow as it may be, hearing bands like Pearls Before Swine name-dropped gives me a bit of a cheap thrill.