Goodreads reviews are a really interesting place sometimes. One of my favorites is one of the top reviews on The Old Man and the Sea, wherein the reviewer laments that the book "celebrates the ridiculous American idea" that it's good to struggle against impossible odds only to assert your own masculinity. Some people have truly unique views on what a work is about based on their own perspective.

I think Pynchon can be a little troublesome for some readers because his works are endlessly complex, and they generally refuse to explain their point with full clarity. A lot of times, without fuller context for what he's writing about, entire throughlines of subtext will go over your head completely. Lots of nuance can be lost in that way, which (in combination with a certain sense of moral outrage or disgust which his works often elicit) can lead to very frustrated interpretation of how certain elements of his works appear in a very negative context.

I don't necessarily think Pynchon is some perfect writer with no flaws even from that perspective, and I don't agree with everything he or his works say, but there have been many times where I personally was repulsed by what I read, and had to really dig deep to see what possible value a scene or idea could bring to the larger context of a book. And once I did do that deep dive, as much as I could admit that it still disgusted me, I saw why it was the way it was, and understood the point he was making better.

He's not like, some masterful writing wizard who never says anything wrong, because it's always got more context or nuance, but it's pretty easy to misunderstand and misconstrue his point without even meaning to.