/lit/ - Literature

Does this use any pomo gimmicks?

How is this postmodern?

I mean actually postmodern, not just "post-WW2". For example, Kerouac's On the Road =\= Vonnegut, Pynchon, Gaddis, PKD, Gass, Barth.

And why is it a postmodern masterpiece?

Yes, I've read it. Just wondering what other people think.

Some questions for the real pyncholes:

1. Why does Pointsman think Slothrop is a monster?

2. What does he think he's going to learn?

3. Pointsman means a child when he says "Fox" but what does Spectro mean? A dog?

Additionally, I'm only now understanding how much of the book is about losing his buddy Richard Fariña. People saying his early books have no heart? Fuck off.

>A screaming comes across the sky.

>Screaming holds across the sky.

there are people here right now on /lit/ who think the screaming is a rocket lmao

Explain Enzian please. Bonus points for symbolism

Summarize it. I want to see if anyone has actually really read it and understood it

summarize this in one sentence

What was imipolex really?
And why does it matter?

How did he write this?

So far I have:
Drugs
Pig books
Walks with gfs where they pretend to be the characters
Webster's 1913 dictionary
Grimm Brothers' dictionary
A lot WW2 movies

What else?
How did he get such weird sentence structures?
Are there books/papers he definitely used?
We know he was deep in the library archives when writing V.

Is there a worse character than Katje Borgesius?

>frau gnahb
really

So what was Imipolex G exactly?

Just finished this bad boy.

So, /lit/, what do I think?

>Inside the carriage, which is built on several levels, he sits in velveteen darkness, with nothing to smoke, feeling metal nearer and farther rub and connect, steam escaping in puffs, a vibration in the carriage’s frame, a poising, an uneasiness, all the others pressed in around, feeble ones, second sheep, all out of luck and time: drunks, old veterans still in shock from ordnance 20 years obsolete, hustlers in city clothes, derelicts, exhausted women with more children than it seems could belong to anyone, stacked about among the rest of the things to be carried out to salvation. Only the nearer faces are visible at all, and at that only as half-silvered images in a view finder, green-stained VIP faces remembered behind bulletproof windows speeding through the city...

What means? seriously though

>A screaming comes across the sky.
then 2 pages later:
>Screaming holds across the sky.

What is the screaming? Humans? Sirens?

unsurpassed

Prove in one sentence that you were not filtered by this.

>>17017761
I’m on page 250 rn. I failed around page 400 last time. It is definitely the hardest book I’ve read and I’ve read Moby-Dick, The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!, Lolita, Pale Fire, and even read Lot 49 before this.

So far this is basically what I get
>Slothrope is a low-level American soldier involved with military intelligence in Europe (mostly England?) who sleeps around a lot. People in military intelligence start realizing that V-2 missiles are bombing the sites of his conquests pretty soon after he does the deed (anywhere from a few hours to 3-4 days later). Military intelligence people then assume that his cumming cannot possibly be the real thing that is causing the missiles to be dropped, so he must have some kind of unconscious trigger that he senses that makes him horny and want to get laid in that specific location, so they figure if they can just figure what it is that is causing his response, they can prevent the missiles coming? And Slothrope is not aware of his precognition abilities. Also he was conditioned as a baby to have a Pavlovian response (arousal) to some kind of stimuli and that’s why his sexual exploits are tied to the V-2, they just can’t figure out why.
>Pirate Prentice is a British soldier who cooks bananas and he is somehow also involved with military intelligence and knows about slothrope? I’m iffy on who he is.
>Roger Mexico is an American soldier and statistician trying to track and predict the dropping of the V-2s. He is also in love with a British chick, Jessica Swanlake, who has another man she’s involved with called the Beaver (???). There love is in some way very melancholy and essentially doomed. One gets the feeling they will not have a happy ending, but I find the sections concerning their relationship very beautiful.
>later, Slothrope falls in love with a Dutch girl, Katje Borgesius, who is involved with the Germans somehow but is not sympathetic to them, just trying to survive (I think??). And also she is a plant placed by Pirate to try to control Slothrope??? I can’t remember this shit. Also she is involved with Blicero and an African twink who she has really gross kinky threesomes with. Also she’s the sominatrix that shits in the old guys mouth??? (Missed that last time) But she uses her dominatrix name?
what is the white visitation? Who is Pointsman again? Just an intelligence guy/Pavlovian scientist tracking Slothrope? Who is Caroll Evynter (I know he’s some sort of spiritual medium) and what is his significance to the war? Also what is the deal with Katje seducing Slothrope at the casino and on the beach? What are They hoping to accomplish with her?

I think it’s really good in the parts I understand. The Roger/Jessica parts, when they go to the evensong service, that shit was beautiful. Also I.G. FARBEN? It’s some sort of tech/industrial company positioned to make a profit from the war no matter who wins? And they are involved with manufacturing the V-2?

>>13178758
>Lived an adventurous beat lifestyle
>Absolute chad who banged plenty of chicks including his friend's wife whose marriage he was the best man at
>Was intimately acquainted with figures like bob dylan, richard fariña, joan baez, and the rest of the Greenwich village crowd
Yeaaaahhh no. Pynchon was paranoid and weird but he transcended basement dwelling schizoids to become a completely new beast.

i haven't slept for 72 hours and just started reading gravity's rainbow. ask me anything and post pynchon memes

Picador