/lit/ - Literature

Dumb bitches. Actual discussion over here!

>>19900187
Bump

>>19900187
have you read other american postmoderns (gaddis, dfw, mcelroy,etc.)? if you havent read any of them and havent read any pynchon then yes, it is pretty standard to be confused especially with the whole jumping around form character to character, introducing new characters, moving around place to place rapidly, etc. its all part of pynchons as well as a lot of american postmodernists styles. so it is somewhat of a shtick, but you could also be distracted. but its pretty normal especially if you are not used to it, but you will get used to it if you keep reading pynchon and read other writers like him.

>>19901373
I haven't, this book is my first encounter with american postmodernists I guess. Makes me feel a bit uneasy. I never know when the guy is going to shift gears on me. Also what's comes after post post modernism? What's the contemporary vibe?

Of the Pynchon I’ve read, this is his worst. It’s not eclectic like some others just kind of aimless and predictable.
Mason and Dixon is the undeniable pinnacle. GR is a little too rough around the edges the more I think about it, but mason and Dixon is a beautiful book, basically perfect.

>>19900187
I read Inherent Vice. I was going to buy this next but seems like anons aren't recommending this. What Pynchon should I buy next? I've heard that TCOL49 is boring too. I want something that is neither hard nor dull.

>>19900187
I've read CoL49 and am amid V. now. As far as I can tell it's by design that it throws you around and confuses you. It seems interactive in that way and its part of what I've been really enjoying about it. It's refreshing to let yourself go and trust the writing to guide you, windingly or otherwise

>>19901732
>windingly
This is the only way of doing I think. But I wish I could read it during the later sleepy stage bed.

>>19901732
That's a nice cope for avoiding the realization that Pynchon can't strong together a narrative point if he tried. He's a reporter. He literally just writes about random people he met and exaggerates some of their characteristics through abuse of prose. His descriptions are beautiful, but because his characters are not fully realized humans with a past and a future he is incapable of saying anything and displaying any sort of meaningful growth other than psychotic or dysfunctional. He's ultimately a photographer, not a writer.

>>19901758
That actually sounds pretty cool desu.

>>19901771
If you like Hunter then you'll love Pynchon because he is just superior Hunter. I dislike both as a matter of taste, but I acknowledge their strengths. They aren't worthless writers, there is value to be gained from their works even if there is no substance.

>>19901722

Finished Vineland a couple of days ago. It's probably my second best Pynchon novel. Such beautiful prose and such memorable scenes in there, sure the middle drags a bit and goes sczhizo a bit but I loved it for the most part.

>>19901722
don't listen to other niggers, buy Vineland, it's fucking great!

>>19901758
another plotfag filtered lmao

>>19902062
If a character has no roots or discernable aspirations and developments I call it like I see it: 1 dimensional. It's a lot easier to lean into overwrought description when you have no regard for treading on the toes of the rest of the world with your atomic beings. Real humans are weathered marble shaped and scarred by the elements of their mileu. Every single word your character's speak was first born on another's lips. Every article of clothing they wear, everything they eat, all of this has documentable origins. And the expression of your character is just a representation of the moment and part of a larger arc with future influences that culminates in development. Pynchon has no care to depict this phenomenon therefore I have no care for Pynchon. A richness of atomic description is no substitute for a richly realized interconnected world.

>>19902189
Not disagreeing but you are an immense pseud and insufferable.

>>19902189
OK

>>19902189
>Every single word your character's speak was first born on another's lips. Every article of clothing they wear, everything they eat, all of this has documentable origins. And the expression of your character is just a representation of the moment and part of a larger arc with future influences that culminates in development. Pynchon has no care to depict this phenomenon therefore I have no care for Pynchon.

For a second there I got lost and thought you were admonishing GR for being exactly that lol

>>19902189
>I am a plotfag
Yes, we know.

best book ever

>>19902719

>>19902461
>>19902477
Not one iota of development or motion. Just pretty pictures.

>>19902754
yes, picturing the character's emotions, place in time and desires

>>19901758
This is directly addressed in V. by way of the Baedeker analogy

>>19902754
Show examples which demonstrate both development and motion within the context of the equivalent of half a page of text. You can't outside of a character/narrator explicitly stating it which will have little impact, especially out of context of what came before. You and that other anon are just pissing on each other to see who can soak the other first.

>>19902847
he basically invented fractals

>>19901836
You mean H. S. Thompson? I've read Fear and Loathing and Listen to Hell's Angels. I feel like his persona his as must of an attraction as the writing itself.