/lit/ - Literature

Speed-read. Don't get bogged down, Pynch is intentionally obscure and you'll often have to read an entire section to see what it was about or what the point was. Don't labor line by line, blast through it like a rocket.

The confusion is part of the point. First read dont bother trying to understand everything, read it and let it wash over you. Accept that you wont understand everything. When you go back and read it again the "greatness" will start to become more apparent.

Or just read earlier Pynchon and then try GR again. Start with V/CoL49

>>16455449
buy the guide

Really though you should read lot 49 first, and maybe even inherent vice, to get acquainted with the style in a more digestible format

>>16455468
Don't fucking read the guide on your first read through. Experience the book as it's intended. Use the guide on subsequent reads.

Don't be a midwit, be intelligent like me

>>16455449
Iktf it's hard to keep going when you're getting filtered by fiction. Starts to feel like you're completely wasting your time

>>16455449
You have to come at GR in a pretty different angle to most other literature. Prior posts about trying to read it at more of a brisk pace are good, but kind of skirt around what I see as a fundamental dilemma. The way Pynchon presents information is maybe the most obtuse short of Joyce. I'm not saying this in terms of his "mechanical" use of language, which is also obtuse, but a different varietal. In an epistemological sense, the way he presents individual instances of meaning is not what we'd expect. I often say that GR "breathes," but I mean that more than anthropomorphically. Anyway, the dilemma in reading GR is balancing the insanely lush prose with the general trend being that the more you concentrate on wringing meaning from it, on focusing on the actual prose, the less you understand about it. This is all my opinion and I am not an expert, but to me GR is an extended series of give and take, where the reader gets "baited" into the words, beyond which lies absolutely nothing. This plays on a basic assumption about the experience of reading a book, that there is a thing which is being conveyed, and that we can trust the author to lead us to it. We want to think an author, if he misleads us for a time, will make it all right, easy, accessible. Pynchon ropes in a reader and takes a genuine glee in betraying that trust whenever the whim takes him.

People call it "allegorical," but I don't think that word does the whole thing justice. Pynchon wants to work with your subconscious before he wants to let you interact with his novels. He wants you to adjust the way you interact with meaning and information. One of the ways he does this is by constantly bombarding a reader with completely irrelevant information. People and places will be introduced at breakneck speed with little more than their personal vignettes. They might pop up again, they might not. A reader eventually either takes it as a gigantic puzzle and accepts the challenge to map together the spider's web of all the characters and plot elements, because surely THAT will help them "understand"; or he gives up, and allows the chaos, accepts it, and so the entire work opens up to him, providing a near-encyclopedic window into the 20th century human experience.

At the same time, it's all just a gigantic shitpost. That jungian thing, or whatever.

>>16455584
Good insight. Though calling it a shitpost undersells it a bit. Because I think despite the layers of obfuscated meaning there are some bits of light where GR genuinely is one of the saddest and most emotional books I've ever read. Pynchon gets a lot of shit for not having "heart" but I think it just tends to get lost in the overbearing nature of his works. Especially this one.

>>16455458
very gay post

>>16455646
t. struggled over the course of months to read 1 book

>>16455638
Out of curiosity, do you think people react in that way as a result of the way in which he writes and makes use of characters?

>>16455638
>calling it a shitpost undersells it a bit
Alright, Pointsman.

>>16455638
COPE

>>16455449
Reread

>>16455676
This, people just aren't expecting a Menippean satire, but once you get it you can see the heart on its sleeve

>>16455449
Is this the book about dicks and rockets

>>16456905
shits also

>>16455449
Read through it once; enjoy the writing and the batshit insanity that ensues, and when you're finished - shelve it. Then, after a year goes by reread it. After that, listen to the audio book. You'll have a much better grasp of everything, and become the Slothropian archetype in all its glory.

This book is not art and therefore you should not read it

>>16455584
>constantly bombarding a reader with completely irrelevant information. People and places will be introduced at breakneck speed with little more than their personal vignettes.
this has been my experience with him so far. ive only read IV and CoL49 and there was a lot of this in those but it didnt feel like a valuable part of the experience. it felt like he didnt expand on the interesting ideas and was filling it up. i read similarly (im guessing) confusing works like naked lunch or zimzum where the meaning came and went but the interesting parts were more interesting and so the getting lost was justified. with those it felt like the meaninglesness actually connected with the meaningful parts but with pynchon it felt like something was lacking. i dunno

>>16457349
read it again. naked lunch is pulp compared to GR

>>16455458
if you do this you will miss out on a great deal of the novel

Focus on following the plot and just trying understand very basically what is happening and what characters are trying to accomplish.

One thing that is confusing I think is how the narration slips between what is happening, and dreams/hallucinations/day dreams, and sometimes that’s very confusing. He doesn’t always make it obvious when scenes are switching but if you pay close attention you can learn the clues.

PS symbology is not a word. Dan Brown made it up and it’s stupid. I know you meant symbolism but I just had to point this out

>>16457509
i havent read gr. how does it compare with col49 and iv? does it expand on the interesting ideas?

>>16458105
JUST READ THE FUCKING BOOK, GET OFF 4CHAN AND READ

>>16458105
My experience;
>read Lot 49
>"wow I see what they mean about Pynchon being complex, this book is crazy"
>read GR
>"..."
>re-read Lot 49
>"It's good, but it's admittedly one of Pynchon's more simplistic works"

GRAVITYS RAINBOW


1. To prepare was 48 hours of adult swim, to get you in the right mood (i recommend tim and eric, the eric andre show, and aqua teen hunger force)
these shows will get your funny bone vibratin & get you attuned to the pynchon comedy frequency (~~~~~~)
2. Brush up on what things belong together and what dont. For instance, in war (serious), pie fights (not serious, wacky, ridiculous) do NOT belong together.
Thats why its so freaking funny. If you're confused as to what things belong together and what dont, youre gonna miss a lot of the comedy, itsjust gonna fly
(like a rocket lol) right over ur little tiny pea brain.
3. Watch monty python and the holy grail for some sophisticated comedy, because pynchon jokes are very high iq like the british version of a sitcom, not stupid
like the american version.
4. Put on you're thinking cap, because pynchons gona throw a lot of important themes at you. Nobody before 1973 had ever said that the military-industrial complex
was messed up. People thought it was really good. Then pynchon arrived on the scene with his flashes of merriment and his songs and gambols, and people took heart:
war was bad news indeed.
4. Strap yourself in tight (its gonna be a bumpy ride)
5. Light some of that sweet sweet sweet ganga marijuana my sweet dude. Oooo that sticky stuff, suck on the joint mon like a ajamaican mon yayaha get high brother.
6. Jerk off before you start, so you arent interrupted with the urge to jerk off later. My fellow rocketeers know what i be sayin mon, yoo know? Ha ha.
7. Cancel all meetings and appointnments. Actually do this earlier.
8. Snacks. Get all the snacks you can find and build a snack fort. Youre gonna want to be snackin mon.
9. Start reading the book.
10. The first half of it doesnt make any sense. Thats on purpose. You just have to plow thru it. You may be thinking, but what could be the point of that. Heh.
Book doesnt make any sense.... yeah, you think thats an accident? Lemme explain somethin else that didnt make too much sense to ya. World war 2. Yeah, sit on that.
11?. Keep on reading until you reach the end of the book.
12. Now you can jerk off agaib you animal.

Just read the Illustrated Classics edition.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27194.Pictures_Showing_What_Happens_on_Each_Page_of_Thomas_Pynchon_s_Novel_Gravity_s_Rainbow?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=tZCfOdj0YR&rank=4

>>16455584
5 star post bud. I have a 6 week old son and I have been reading him Mason & Dixon and playing Frank Zappa and live Phish recordings for him

>>16458219
gonna say I followed this and it helped A LOT

>>16458128
no. its a long ass book and ive read really fucking long books and regretted it so i want to get a sense of it. im not too big on pynchon from the ones ive read but whenever people talk about gr, i almost want to read it. plus im a slow reader so its a big investment.

>>16455449
Look up his military service and Walter Dornberger

>>16458062
This is my biggest problem with Pynch. I managed to power through GR but had to shelve Mason & Dixon because a majority of the time I genuinely couldn't tell what was going on. Is there any benefit to this style of writing? I can't think of any positive impact it brings to his stories beyond being a middle finger to the reader.

>>16458574
If you can grit your teeth and get through ~100 pages of schizoposting it's genuinely a life-changing book, and I say this as a slow reader.

>>16457657
This is a stupid fear. You know you can read something twice right?

>>16458062
>PS symbology is not a word. Dan Brown made it up and it’s stupid.


semiotics?

>>16459064
gurdgieff claimed to deliberately obfuscate his meaning so that people wouldn't rush to claim to understand it, but he was a charlatan anyway.

>>16459219
But you can only read it for the first time once.

>>16459091
well i love naked lunch and thats pure schizoposting. but theres well written schizo and then theres house of leaves

>>16455449
Muh bananas

>>16459659
Depends on what MEAN lol. Pretty sure symbolism fits just fine.

>>16455449
Just get the audiobook brah. Reading words is gay.