/lit/ - Literature

>>14347133
WWII ushered in an obscene and violent age of corporate determinism and governmental control that depersonalized and rendered absurd the individual, and the only way out of its destructive path is to disappear.

>>14347211
I'm like 100 pages in and I'm starting to wonder if I'm just retarded or what because none of this is making much sense. Does it get better?

>>14347235
Guide:https://americanaejournal.hu/vol6no2/lacey

It's a hard book. Took me a year if start/stops. Don't feel ashamed to read cliffnotes if that keeps you going.

>>14347133
It's nonsense. Maybe there's something there if you put in enough work, but is it worth it? Enjoy the scene where the guy has a woman shit in his mouth and eats it, I guess. Quality literature worth your dedicated effort right there.

>>14347277
Maybe / maybe not.

>>14347256
I love further readings I look forward to reading that link you posted thank you

>>14347133
i just couldn't finish it
doesn't make any sense to me at all

>>14347133
usually these threads ask "what are *you* reading." i'd imagine based on pic that you're reading gravity's rainbow by thomas pynchon.

>>14347235
>bro I haven't finished the book yet why don't I understand everything?

uhhh

>>14347256
Great article, thanks for sharing.

>>14347133
Tried reading this twice.
I always end up reading 20 pages and falling asleep.
Same with Mason and Dixon and I didn't like Tcol49 .

Its prestige is the result of a joint venture between Thomas Pynchon, high as a rocket and placing a midnight phone call, and various literary outlets, as equally blitzed and giggly and receptive to zany conspiracy theories during such hours in the night, suggesting that if enough grandstanding praises could surround an utterly turgid slog of a novel, rife with erection compasses and edible female fecal matter, then the masses could reliably be duped into thinking the novel was worth a shit, and thereafter spend the next handful of decades reading the hype, buying the paperback, scratching their heads, and trying to deduce mysteries composed by an author talking to himself in the mirror while high on speed. It is one of the greatest long cons of recent literary heist, and Pynchon has been laughing to the bank ever since. When you've finally transcended and realized the only correct approach to Gravity's Rainbow is to toss it over your shoulder, you can then attempt Mason & Dixon, and thereafter, if you're feeling particularly masochistic, anything by Vollman.

>>14347256
Really insightful. Having read the book a month ago lots of things have gone over my head apparently. Thanks for posting.

>>14347133
Why can't I find any hardcover of Gravity's Rainbow besides the first edition ones that start at a price of $300?

>>14347977
lol filtered

>>14348040
You are a fabrication of unmet desires.

>>14348121
that's why I don't talk to my parents...

>>14348136
God be with you, anon. Never challenge me again.

>>14348147
no

>>14347235
Found the newfag

subjectively my favorite and objectively the greatest novel ever written

>>14347977
i hope you really believe this so i can laugh harder

>>14348674
The shared quality between adherents of Pynchon and DFW is their inability to express a singular cogent thought, a conglomerate of sluggish plebians drawn to the flame of mediocrity, seeped in obfuscation, hoping that here, at last, they might forge an identity for themselves having everywhere else failed to produce desirable outcomes. Young, resentful, Caucasian, virginal; so very alike, this herd of Pychonians. These writers, incapable of truth, opt instead for needless complexity, saying nothing, achieving nothing. From Tolstoy, Melville, Faulkner and the rest can one extract lone moments of truth and poetry. From Pynchon--seedy madness, poignant only in the eyes of twits. Twit: you are incapable of beauty. Your mind is transparent mush.

>>14347133
Both an encyclopedia for the end of history and your own schizophrenia diagnosis (If you can finish/make sense of the book)

>>14347133
Pynchons second best

>>14347133
Adult version of Looney Toons

>>14347133
Literally read any other pynchon novel except GR and you'll have a better time with yourself

>>14347277

Brigadier Pudding doesn't 'have a woman shit in his mouth', it's pointsman orchestrating the whole thing as a Pavlovian exercise. Go read it again if you think it's 'nonsense', because if you can't remember simple things like that you obviously didn't understand it.

>>14347133
not Gaddis, sadly

>>14347133
It's one of the reasons that, were aliens ever to come across our civilization, then they would wipe us out and glass the Earth.

It’s not for everyone, I’ll admit that. He’s combining historical fiction with surrealism, absurdist humor, and occasionally tropes of detective fiction, sci-fi, and maybe even spy-fiction to an extent. All of this in a grandiose postmodern style with tons of apparent digressions and different subplots and characters who don’t seem quite related at first until you keep reading on and on to see how they fit together.

I could understand why people don’t like it, but I’m a bit bemused when people gloss over all the poignance of some of his scenes and the beautiful style at times, instead focusing overmuch on the occasional juvenile humor. Ironically, I think it’s because they’re so afraid of being immature and want to seem “grown-up” and “deep”. So Pynchon’s occasional immaturity brings out their own latent immaturity. Pynchon may sometimes be looking to offend, amuse, and/or write bizarrely and childishly just for the sake of it, but everyone focuses on “dude bananas” or “dude a woman shits in a mouth” instead of scenes like the extended digression about Pokler and his daughter. Not only that, but even the ridiculous or surrealistic scenes often tie into the imagery and themes of the book somehow.

>>14354656
people remember those juvenile scenes because they are extremely shocking

>>14352991
we can't all be well read like you

>>14347235
use a reading companion my friend. also dont wory about it it gets much easier (then 'hard' again in part 4)

>>14347969
thats ok

>>14354656
>So Pynchon’s occasional immaturity brings out their own latent immaturity.
I actually had to stop reading for 5 or 10 minutes after reading the "down the toilet" poem because I was hysterically laughing. Partly because of how stupidly silly it is combined with how GR is considered the artistic peak of postmodern American literature. And also because poop and pee is really funny

>>14350188
WHATS his best

The tale of Byron the goddamn Lightbulb.

>>14356617
Mason & Dixon, but that book hasn't been memed for 50 years like GR so nobody knows that

>>14348744
Why did you leave Telegram again

how will I know if I'm ready for GR? "Deepest" shit I've read has to be Inferno or some other high school tier book, and I've already picked up and put down GR twice because it just doesn't click

>>14357797
Maybe try reading V. first. Pynchon's style can take a while to get used to. If you already have 500 or so pages of experience you can jump right into the weirdness particular to GR without being overwhelmed by the weirdness of Pynchon in general.

>>14357797
Also try reading Catch-22. It's also a postmodern wacky American war novel but it's significantly easier than GR.

>>14347211
pretty fucking good

FPBP today

>>14347133
also something something about fucking ourselves to death, the phallic imagery of rockets and whatnot

>>14347133
Well, you're reading CIA propaganda.

If you understand his book, you're actually proving yourself stupid.

>>14358978
more like anti-CIA propaganda

>>14358982
Get out here you fucking glownigger.

>>14358985
He fucking exposed MKUltra while it was still classified.

>>14358990
(((he))) "exposed" MK Ultra.

>>14358978
>>14358985
>>14358994
It's fine if you don't "understand" the book, but if it doesn't leave you with a deep feeling of discomfort for faceless acronym'd government agencies YOU are proving yourself stupid.

>>14359001
I didn't finish two of his books because they're shit.

Also - fuck the Federal Government.

>>14359009
No, it's because your brain is poisoned by internet addiction, and the only thing that can satiate your damaged neurons are trite /pol/ memes.

>>14358978
>CIA propaganda
>section of the novel where a deranged group of eccentrics travel around on a ship named The Anubis, a clear reference to the ancient Kabbalistic priesthoods that are popular among Shriner types, where they conduct mass orgies and sacrifice that involve children.

Yeah, they're just going to lay that all out in their propaganda.
Why talk about a book you clearly haven't read?

>They surround the fickle star in the sky, shooting in parabolic symmetry, a cascade of the aether ripping open to sinister horizons, Choronzon's maw with obsidian teeth, while they stare and reprimand their lonely past selves, all a terrible lie, all a false projection, vying now to hold each other in terror's correction; only a minute left until the great unraveling, the textile reality will become nude to the phosphenes, the latter to pleroma. Hysterics take hold and a great exhale.

Based

>>14348744
Based

>>14348744
How ironic.

>Be Pynchon
>write a masterpiece that effectively ties together the clandestine nature of collusion between corporate entities, governments, cabals, and occultists that produced World War 2
>be of age in the 60s where all this fuckery was at its peak, where the stark decline of western civilization began
>include many allusions to the bible, gnosticism, neoplatonism, John Dee, Eliphas Levi, Masonry, Kabbalism to try and guide people to think deeper about popular culture
>lessen the dreary nature by injecting his own brand of humor into it
>and yet, somehow, retarded undergrads try to cobble together sentences with tone deaf vocabulary to only say "hurr book makes no sense."

Some of you people are too arrogant to give yourself up to a piece of art without stuffing your ego into it.
It honestly surprises me when you people try to argue that this novel makes no sense, when there are tons of secondary sources to bring about an understanding that concisely get to the root of what Pynchon was getting at.
Use Google for fuck's sake.

>>14356314
Shit and piss hold special significance in the realm of occult Sex Magick.

Never read anything you don't enjoy just for acceptance within a community of elitist assholes.

>>14360008
Maybe some people just like to challenge themselves? Feels good when you get through something difficult.

>>14359993
Are you saying "yippy dippy dippy doo" is some sort of occult chant?

>>14347235
You're supposed to stop reading it partway through and restart at least twice, or else you're a brainlet.

>>14360481
He may be onto something. Scooby Doo and Fred Flintstone were brief glimpses at the truth, hidden in plain sight.

>>14354656
>I think it’s because they’re so afraid of being immature and want to seem “grown-up” and “deep”.
This a hundred percent. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to deal with people who refuse to let themselves laugh at things that are silly because they’re trying so hard to have “serious” and “””developed””” opinions. It’s fucking annoying; I have a friend in particular who personifies this behavior. His room is full of pop culture paraphernalia, he has a number of Batman things, and when I asked him why he had them he said, “I haven’t read any but it’s iconic”. Another time we were watching some dumb bear grylls shit on Netflix (which was very dumb but it was fun for that reason) and he was complaining the whole time that it was “so unrealistic” and “too ridiculous.” Despite taking himself so seriously when I try to show him “serious” media that’s out of his norm, he’ll complain that it’s too weird. I think it’s a sign of intelligence when people can appreciate high art while being able to laugh at dumb shit.

Also, say what you will, but Pynchon is one of the most recondite niggas to be alive rn. There’s so much shit in the book that’s so obscure it blows my mind. All the stuff in the book is even crazier considering he was writing in the 60s/70s, when the internet wasn’t a thing and you had to do research on your own.

>>14347133
Confession: I'm only reading Pynchon because I heard there's a footjob in the book "Bleeding Edge"

>>14361983
>recondite
Good word but I think you used it incorrectly. He's not a "recondite nigga" but a "nigga spittin recondite facts".

Any unique valuable insights in this book?

>>14362355
Are you reading his entire oeuvre for this one scene?

>>14362396
No. Only a few of the books, though I chose to start with that one.

a shitty book

>>14362355
What other books have footjobs in them? If any? Not counting amazon smut, of course.

>>14362383
Thank you for the good catch king. It’s been a while since I used membean

>>14347133
i've been following this, so far im on inherent vice, which is an easier read imo that the crying of lot 49

getting used to a writters prose is always helpful

like trying to read ulysses right off the bat

>>14348744
see
>>14359984

>>14359984
It sounds like a masterpiece to me. I don't really get the hate. Also if you don't believe the populace is being subjected mass conditioning by now, your kind of a brainlet.

>>14362383
Based

>>14362936
Why start with the movie? Just read the book

>>14363053
yeah i skipped that part, maybe its just for completion sake of his media? idk

>>14359984
it still doesn't make any sense
cry moar sanctimonious idiot

>>14362396
Yes

>>14363086
It does make sense. You’re just not well-read enough to get it.

>>14347235


you need to at least get to the part with the hot air balloon pie fight, otherwise you won't have any clue.

>>14347346
so you didn't get to the part about the Iron Toad in the urinal, wired up to the grid in a way that delivers random electric shocks to whoever pisses on it?

>>14359993
jodorowsky pls go

>>14363481
Are you man enough to piss on the Toad?

>>14359984
Yeah but wasn't that breakfast Bananas?

>>14364353
I really, really like this image. Mind if I save it?

>>14348744
Maybe the whole point is that singular truths no longer exist?

Its not so bad if you acknowledge the fact that its not supposed to be all digested within the first read and just enjoy the strange ride instead

>>14357169
the correct answer. way better developed characters

I think that there's far better books out there that did what GR is trying to accomplish, and a lot of them do this in a more coherent and enjoyable way

>>14363752
i wish i got invited to parties like Putzi's.

>>14365454
name three.

>>14365829
I don't have to prove anything to you!!!

>>14366075

then i win.

>>14363086
it's pretty simple once you think about it