I find myself, like many of you, enjoying this book despite the density of every paragraph. Pynchon has done an amazing amount of research and frankly I'm a little embarrassed at the effort it takes me to read his book: I can't even imagine writing it.
One of the most rewarding things about reading this are the simple descriptions Pynchon provides. Often he couples a noun with an adjective that fits so perfectly that you wonder why the two words aren't used together more often. "A cold smear of sun", "slate shadows", "a silly bleeding smile".....they sound so natural and describe something so perfectly that I sometimes have to stop and think if I've heard them before.
I'm echoing others of you again when I say that I've found Roger and Jessica's relationship the most interesting aspect of the novel so far. My favorite part was in the "They are in love. Fuck the war" section. Just before this much-loved quote is "It is marginal, hungry, chilly--most times they're too paranoid to risk a fire-but it's something they want to keep, so much that to keep it they will take on more than propaganda has ever asked them for." In short, when they go to this house they subject themselves to conditions that are much worse than the conditions that the war forces them into, and they're happy they get the chance to do so. In the rest of the novel war is the defining blackness-and-all-that-is-bad in the world, so much so that Jessica can't remember what life was like before the war and Roger assures her that it was "damned silly, that's all. Worrying about things that don't..."(60). The war completely changed life to be altogether more depressing, and still R&J voluntarily seek out war-like conditions, all in the name of love. This is an interesting study of motivation, which is another recurrent theme in this novel, especially as it relates to Pavlov.
I love the way that Pynchon couples two seemingly unconnected nouns together to form a detailed picture and a feeling. It seems to usually be an ordinary object coupled with an object of war of destruction. During the scene with the two women and the wine jellies, Slothrop describes all the candies using weaponry words. "...peering into the jar, a .455 Webley cartridge of green and pink striped taffy, a six-ton earthquake bomb of some silver-flecked gelatin, and a licorice bazooka." (Page 120) It provides a powerful image--the licorice is annnihilating his mouth. On page 137 Pynchon writes, "Is that who you are, that vaguely criminal face on your ID card, its soul snatched by the government camera as the guillotine shutter feel..." (Page 137) Pynchon turns all these ordinary objects into weapons and agents of destruction. During wartime, all of the characters seem to see the war coming through in their everyday lives.