/lit/ - Literature

>>20706794
Ulysses is so much harder

>>20706794
Lol you fell for the Pynchon meme, dumbass.

>>20706802
you can't be a fan of 4chan and not like the pynch, it just doesn't add up.

>>20706794
How hard is this book compared to V?

>>20706908
V. is more of a grind because it's boringer

>>20706794
That's a big problem with GR. It's an Emperor's New Novel.

Pynchon has much better books that are perfectly readable, even though they should be more "difficult".

I read M&D three times and probably will again. I dropped GR after the first eight pages.

>read Ulysses
>think GR is gibberish

I don't believe you.

>>20707021
M&D is leagues better than GR

>>20707021
Funny, the first 15 pages are designed to be a filter for readers just like you.

>>20707021
>>20707286
They're not indicative of the novel. I almost got filtered too.

Although, I have had the same problem with M and D.

>>20707233
nah

>>20707286
> I.. I wasn't writing poorly!
> I was j..just filtering out the ps... psueds!

Yeah. Okay.

>>20707321
ngmi

>>20707321
What makes the opening passages "poor" in your opinion? Or are you talking shit about a book you've never read?

>>20707389
it's a nearly incomprehensible dream sequence and no one can even agree on what the screaming is

>>20707448
Are you trolling? lmao

>>20707448
lol filtered

>>20706945
Haha it's one of my favorite books so I guess I shouldn't put off GR anymore

>>20707531
go on and explain it then (you can't) it's one page (you can't) lol lmao

>>20707603
the dream is much longer than one page lmao and it's ultimately that, a dream.

>>20707603
It is a nightmare vision of the sorting process after death and displays most of the central themes in only one and half pages: reverse-causation, duality, death, fantasy, elect vs. preterite; and acts as a stylistic primer for the rest of the novel.

>>20707708
>after death
no

>displays most of the central themes in only one and half pages
no

>elect vs. preterite
yes

>and acts as a stylistic primer for the rest of the novel
eh it clears up and stays clear up until roger and jessica going to mass

>>20707855
uhh filtered

>>20707855
One word refutations don't count.

>>20707891
Sounds like cope

>>20707943
No arguments?

>>20707958
ASCREAMING COMES ACROSS THE SKY. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to no.

It is too late. The Evacuation still proceeds, but it’s all theatre. There are no lights inside the cars. No light anywhere. Above him lift girders old as an iron queen, and glass somewhere far above that would let the light of day through. But it’s night. He’s afraid of the way the glass will fall—soon—it will be a spectacle: the fall of a crystal palace. But coming down in total blackout, without one glint of light, only great invisible crashing.

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. . .

>>20707981
ass creaming cums kek

>>20707981
?

>>20706794
I just read the first 10 pages myself, my impression:
>solid descriptive prose in the opening scene
>though very much focused on the external, metal, steam, architecture
>sorry, you cannot capture the human condition with descriptions of physical properties
>characters feel flat, with little psychological substance to them, more like caricatures
>the 'funny' names seem a bit lame
>the 'funny' song seems a bit lame, like low quality American humor

>>20708044
you've only read 10 pages

>>20706801
In what way?

>>20708062
pynchon's just capeshit

>>20708044
joaquin stick and decoverly pox actually are key characters with more depth than anything in faulkner

>>20708062
95% of ulysses adds up so like if x is mentioned in one place it's at least in another place in the novel it's tightlaced af
gr is not

>>20708044
>characters feel flat, with little psychological substance to them, more like caricatures
Maybe because they are? and all but two of them never appear in the book again? lol

>>20706794
Just had the same experience with Infinite Jest.
I get that this might turn into a good novel, I'm just not sure how much of a shit I give about this posh yuppie and his Tennis game vs something actually interesting.

>>20708132
Example? I feel like just because you don't see a connection doesn't mean it's not there.

>>20708132
no, gr is like that too

>>20708044
It's amusing you only read 10 pages and the book still managed to go over your head. Typical of ESLs.

I loved Vineland, Inherent Vice and Bleeding Edge. I absolutely detest this book tho.

>>20708206
cool

Try the final boss of literature now.

>>20708163
Like what? Quite possible that I missed stuff, like the historical references

Colder than the nipple on a witch’s tit!
Colder than a bucket of penguin shit!
Colder than the hairs of a polar bear’s ass!

Sorry, but this is cringe.

>>20708229
I bet if Rick and Morty sang it you'd be all over it.

>>20708217
Yea this is more of what I’m looking for. Genuine 4chan authored books. Not Redditor stuff like Gravity’s Rainbow.

>>20706802
This but unironically. Postmodernists either always hit or always miss. Pynchon is in the always miss category

>>20708217
Honestly this is the best of the meme books. The other so-called meme books from here have been kinda boring. Infinite Jest, Gravity’s Rainbow, etc. But CotC was a blast to read because of how outright entertaining and strange the plot was.

I love threads where people read five pages of a book and make sweeping declarations about it being complete trash.
Pynchon is not very hard to read. There's a lot of depth you can dig into, but even in GR 80-90% of it is written like pic related. Imagine being filtered by this.

>>20708229
it's supposed to be

>>20708376
Maybe some people just dislike the writing in the book? Is it really such an impossible thing to believe?

>>20708217
>>20708270
>>20708324
piss of

>>20708160
no, it really isn't

>>20708158
example in ulysses or gr?

>>20708422
lmao filtered

>>20708422
example in GR

>>20708411
didn't ask

>>20708443
Random example:

>When Slothrop was discovered, late in 1944, by "The White Visitation"

Really, two things there. How did they "discover" him? Hanging chad, which is fine but it's there. "The White Visitation" lol what in the fuck does this mean? Why is it in quotes? I saw one theory that it's supposed to hint at the style of censorship using white bars like picrel

>>20708498
holy shit just finish the book first

>>20708132
t. Never read GR.

>>20708411
"I dislike the prose" is a completely different criticism from "Pynchon is a meme and everyone who says they like him is just pretending." If you start paying more attention to the way people phrase their shittalk, the latter shows up a surprising amount everywhere people discuss books. 99% of the time that anyone tosses out the word "pretentious" to describe a book, this is what they're saying.
Literature, for whatever reason, really stings people and makes them feel inferior if they fail to like a work that's hailed as good. To protect themselves from that narcissistic injury a lot of people rush to claim that there is nothing to like and that they're the only ones who saw through the con.

>>20708498
Is this the first book you've read that isn't YA schlock with pages of raw info-dump explanation in the beginning and a glossary in the back?

>>20708501
Did a few times. Can you answer? No. Lyle didn't sell Slothrop to "The White Visitation" and they had to discover them themselves in 1944 (wtf)

The name for "The White Visitation" is never explained.

Please explain. Maybe I missed something, but unlikely.

>>20708525
>>20708511
Are you embarrassed for gliding through the book? Your eyes glazed over? These are open questions about the book...

>>20708529
you need to pay attention next read

>>20708535
no they aren't, though I suppose they never went into the full etymology of the name, it's at least implied

>>20708498
>>20708529
Part of the point of Slothrop as a character is the mystery of his background and I'd don't understand why you're so hung up over The White Visitation. The book is overtly concerned with the White race, white is also the color of mental asylums and Visitation - "V" motif, and idk they come and "visit" the subjects. lol

>>20708408
Nah, he does it in all books and defnitely thinks it's funny.

>>20708535
The white and black motifs were pretty fucking obvious through the whole book and the entire point of the White Visitation is that it's full of spooky shit going on in what used to be an asylum. "Visitation" makes sense there - giving the image of some sinister force showing up to an inmate, etc.
Did you expect him to add a fucking footnote spelling this all out for you, or some Christopher Nolan expository dialogue shit?

>>20708574
I'm just talking about that one

>>20708577
and another nod to colonialism

>>20708559
>it's at least implied
how so

>>20708565
Ok, which is fundamentally different from Ulysses lol

>>20708577
This is the l a z i e s t high school level analysis. I'm actually kind of surprised. But... you clearly don't care so whatever. If you think that's a real interpretation or answer you're embarrassing yourself. Luckily it's only anonymously online.

>>20708612
>Heh... Nice try kid... You'll never analyze like I can analyze... Better luck next time ;^)
Go fuck yourself

>>20708376
No offense but this sort of light slapstick comedy is exactly the reason why I don't read much Pynchon

>>20708217
Based

>>20708612
>Ok, which is fundamentally different from Ulysses lol
Yeah but you made it seem like you were talking about like a plot hole or something. There's enough details to complete the novel in one direction or another, the only difference from Joyce is that this is ultimately up to the reader.

>>20708646
>it's called "The White Visitation" because of spooky shit at an asylum
It's not the actual name of the place. I expect that it's left open for interpretation like Imipolex G and the murder of Bianca and why Tchitcherine doesn't recognize Enzian and a whole bunch of other loose ends. Maybe there are hints in the text. You, as in you, don't know because you breezed through it thinking stuff like "Visitation makes sense there"

Degenerating literary culture very sad. Stay self satisfied lol

>>20708758
"The White Visitation" is in quotes because that's not the official name of the facility, but just what PISCES is quoted as calling it.

>>20708818
That's not how proper names work. Not in the novel, not anywhere. No other place is constantly in quotations, not even other mysterious facilities. Stop pretending to have done anything but glazed-eye wander through the book until you hit the last page.

>>20708612
maybe try rereading the first book again he goes into detail around the history of the place

>>20708670
why would we get offended by your stuffy opinion?

>>20708758
he didn't say it was the name of the place, just that they're doing spooky shit at the asylum and it fits

>>20708873
Yeah man, it's just in quotes for no reason, no one is being quoted. :^)
And all the other groups/facilities have official names, "The White Visitation" is an informal designation.

>>20708919
Cope. It's in quotes for a reason, but the narrator isn't quoting.

>And all the other groups/facilities have official names
No, they don't. You very clearly didn't pay attention or at best don't remember. Ah well. Go play t ball.

>>20708894
Because now you resort to ad hominem because I expressed a dislike for superficial slapstick

>>20708962
Ok stuffy. You're so stuffy. No one will listen to a stuffy guy like yourself.

>>20708952
>No, they don't. You very clearly didn't pay attention or at best don't remember.
Feel free to provide examples.

>>20707286
>>20707350
>>20707540
i wish all "git gud" retards like you would just get tortured to death, already. there's nothing worse than a brainlet who thinks he's a genius simply because he managed to grind his way through mediocre fiction.
natural eugenics can't happen fast enough. hopefully in a million years dumb animals like you won't exist. genuinely smart people read 10-20 nonfiction books or research papers for every work of fiction they read. once you are immersed in the actual scientific world, you look back and see just how stupid so much fiction is. the real filter here is getting caught in the shitty novel cult that thinks it is enlightened for mindlessly memorizing the canon:
>infinite jest
>gravity's rainbow
>recognitions
>etc
you're more pathetic than you will ever realize. you're worse than niggers because at least they don't even pretend to think. and even dicklet chinks are at least good at math. but you? you are pointless.

>>20709010
>NO IT IS LE BAD!!!

stay filtered :)

>>20708995
for... informal designations? you're not this stupid you cannot be

>>20709010
stemlord cope haha you'll never be a real human being lol and lmao

>>20709010
name a few nonfiction books or research papers worth reading

we're breeding like bunnies bucko
and we believe in God

>>20709028
>>20709028
>nonfiction = stem
deflect harder, retard. even the other human sciences laugh at you. i will always prefer to read law, history, or philosophy over this buck-toothed faggot's shitty prose.
but i guess there's no point arguing with those that are blind to the obvious.

>>20709026
Yeah, show me a fictional location in GR that has an unofficial name not in quotes or fuck off.

>>20709097
Mald

>>20709046
i'm only saying that novels are overrated. theology, on the other hand, i would consider to be serious work. rudolf otto is one of my favorite thinkers.
so the real question is, if novels can't compete on intellectual grounds, then shouldn't they at least try to have the most beautiful form possible? when a novelist goes "hur durr, it's SUPPOSED to be bad!" it just confirms that they are a useless idiot. either write well, or gtfo. and if you have something genuinely important to say about the world, then write nonfiction. simple as.

>>20709144
Cram it, churchie

>>20709144
>if novels can't compete on intellectual grounds

Who says they can't

>>20708976
No, you're stuffy

>>20709097
I was assuming, kindly apparently, that you were some sort of giga stem monster, ice cold blue eyes, some sort of blond beast, laserlike analysis...

>law
>history
>philosophy
this is all just /lit/ shit that's the same level as fiction ahaha you're deluded big time

>>20709144
>i'm only saying that novels are overrated. theology, on the other hand, i would consider to be serious work.
-_-

>>20708962
touchy too!

>>20709173
>appreciating good theology = being religious
simpleton. fuck god, and fuck you, too.

>>20709183
now you're hitting me with ad hom wtf can i report posts for this i'm doing it anyway fuck it and fuck you you are going down fuckface you stuffy yeah stuffy fuckface

>>20709191
Who are you quoting?

>>20709191
>good theology
>in a book
holy heck

>>20709189
i argued against one assumption only to have to argue against another one now. the full truth is that i like *all* serious disciplines, whether in the human, formal, natural, social, or other sciences. art, on the other hand, is a mixed bag, because it ranges from trashy entertainment, to high culture. i like the latter, but there is a niche within it that produces mediocre work that attempts to pass as avant-garde. i see through it, but apparently many do not, as this board generally and this thread in particular can attest.

>>20709144
But GR absolutely is beautiful. You sound like a complete autist incapable of appreciating anything aesthetically without retarded objective measures that you try to tack on.

>>20709194
No, you're a stuffy fuckface

>>20709144
>rudolf otto is one of my favorite thinkers
Can you sum up what makes him good?

>>20709225
Spoken like a true stem bug

Your aversion to the creative arts is not endearing, humans are not robots

>>20709112
How about... "The Forbidden Wing" and "The Heath" fuck you're right. Even "This Is All Being Stage To See What You'll Do So I Mustn't Make One Wrong Move" is in the stupid quotations. You win, I lose. Whatever and fuck you. One day, though, is you better watch out, is all. I might find something.

>half the thread is people calling each other names
ah, true intellectuals

>>20709225
you're in some sort of delusion about what the real priest classes are haha oh well you'll probably figure it all out eventually you ARE here at least

>>20709257
>ah, true intellectuals
fuck off to re**it jackhole i'm spitting on the floor

>>20709282
The fuq did you call me?

>>20709259
don't be coy. there aren't many options.
>businesspeople
>engineers
>doctors
>military/police
>teachers
>jews
>marxists
>satanists
>freemasons
>pedophiles
>aliens
ultimately the final boss is yourself, dude. grow up.

>>20709282
>doesn't understand irony
I have three things to say. Your personality is on the rustic side. You have a strange way referencing saliva. And finally, you have horrible overall cognitive skill.

>>20709294
i called you the slop that some satanist in a robe pulled out of your mother
and there's nothing you can do about it i'm anonymous on the internet i could be a dog you don't know not that you'd be able to tell because you're so fucking not good at telling what you're seeing OR probably even reading i bet you have more regrets than you can count on your fingers on both hands

>>20709314
Not a bad try lol but somehow you missed the real ones. See? You'll learn

>>20709317
Man, I'm having a rough day and I don't need this right now. I'm going to log off for a bit.

>>20709239
i'm not religious, so i interpret him in secular terms. his idea of the "numinous" seems to be nbbling at the edges of the phenomenon of "lucid epilepsy". i am one of the few people on earth that experiences this. it feels transcendental, and i totally understand why religious people who experience it interpret it as being revelations from god. any time i detect that someone is talking about lucid epilepsy i take a keen interest in them because it is almost never talked about, since it is so rare. there are a few other people that i've heard described as having been gripped by it, or that they themselves admitted to being struck by this mental lightning storm. joan of arc and frank wilczek are examples. i actually don't think that rudolf otto felt the full brunt of it, but perhaps a weaker tingling version of it. i hope to one day write something that explains it fully, because it is probably the weirdest and most amazing cognitive phenomenon in existence, and it is excruciatingly alienating to see zero other people talk about it (except some psychologists/psychiatrists who know about epileptoid conditions; though they, too, seem to only understand it indirectly by studying patients, rather than feeling it directly the way that i do).
otto doesn't fully satisfy me, and i don't put him on a pedestal, but he is more interesting than penis rockets, at least.

>>20709370
Dude, it was just pasta, chillax

>>20709393
Haha i'm only pretending to care, fellow ironybro. Now I'll make another post saying this post isn't the guy you bullied off lit and that it did hurt but thanks for apologizing or maybe something mean. We. Will. See.

>>20709383
You should really read your godel

>>20709406
>missed my meta-ironic apology
Haha noob

>>20709363
>knows most ultimatest secret of all
>keeps it to himself
yeah i'm sure it's truly important and that you're totally not wrong at all

>>20709417
It's a reverso poem in prose. I forget the actual term for it. Do every other word circle back and every other word again. This post is one as well.

>>20709426
It's not a currency that can be passed around. You have to mint your own coins.

>>20709445
so
>jannies
gotcha

>>20709408
why? did he have lucid epilepsy / epiphanies? in what work of his does he write about it?

I find Ulysses way fucking harder. The references in Ulysses are way more obscure, you basically have to be familiar with the layout of 1910s Dublin to understand some shit. The references in Gravity's Rainbow are comparatively more common. GR is also a lot of engaging by being straight up hilarious, so even if you don't understand GR, you'd at least be willing to read it to just laugh. Ulysses has 'humor' but its more chuckle to self humor whereas GR is burst out laughing humor.

>>20710646
>The references in Gravity's Rainbow are comparatively more common.
I don't think so. But they're not interlinked like they are in Ulysses so you don't gain too too much by getting familiar with them.

>>20710679
Why do you keep saying this? GR absolutely does come together into a cohesive whole if you actually read the whole thing

>>20710698
Sorry to burst your bubble lol but it doesn't. And compared to Ulysses? It's the opposite pole. Doesn't mean GR is bad, but it's a spaghetti monster of loose ends. It's exactly like calling Naked Lunch a cohesive whole. Just isn't.

Cf Molly's section at the end of Ulysses: it runs through the entire novel adding additional information and depth to everything you've just read. Not indirectly, but directly.

GR doesn't do this. For all its references—which come together gorgeously on a local level—don't reach out past where they occur. The only thing that really does this in an interesting way is Crouchfield and Whappo being a hallucinatory precursor of Weissmann and Nguarorerue. And maybe Operation Black Wing but eh. Maybe Slothrop's map being bullshit too, that's an interesting twist. The rest is local. Knowing that "enzian" is a color, a missile, the key ingredient to Moxie, a reference to a Rilke poem, well, that's great but it's not interlinked in the novel.

>>20706794
There are 73 episodes in Gravity’s Rainbow broken into 4 parts. Try not to stop in the middle of an episode. Most are short, 3-10 pages. Try to figure out which character is featuring prominently in the episode you’re currently reading, in part I it’s mostly Slothrope, Pointsman, Pirate Prentice, and Roger Mexico. The writing style is confusing at first but I don’t think it’s gibberish at all, it’s just like a tidal wave of details and technical language, an abundance of particulars mixed with poetic literary language and metaphors, but it’s best to just try to take it in stride as much as you can. Some of it is silly, and meant to be a little crazy. I remember the first scene with Slothrope, Pynchon lists everything piled onto his desk over months of mess and neglect, and it’s over 40 different items or materials.

>>20710842
>Pynchon lists everything piled onto his desk over months of mess and neglect, and it’s over 40 different items or materials.
which include stray puzzle pieces

>>20708376
>chased by drooling red army personnel
The delivery of Pynchon's punchlines are superb

>>20710792
Ulysses is exceptional but you are being unfair to GR. The scope of the story is simply larger, but most of the lengthier asides get subsumed in the various dichotomies that make up the themes of the book.

>>20708270
https://mega.nz/file/T4JVTaAK#JoNDGajExr1OicnR0AOJwck21341Gwd548-fkUnSxWc

>>20706794
>it reads like fucking gibberish.
There's some guy on twitter with a cuttlefish profile with a biographical thread on Pynchon in his early NSA sort of days during and after WW2. Pynchon in this book knows far too much about the special projects 'wonder weapons' and such given the time period.

>>20709010
ngmi deadass no cap

>>20709010
Git gud.

>the humour is bad
>its supposed to be bad!
>characters are flat
>theyre supposed to be flat

kek

>>20711522
filter

>>20709010
zoomers absolutely seething

i think this is the funniest /lit/ joke that we keep from newfags. they actually think people enjoy this shit!

>>20711634filtere

filterio

Absolutely SIEVED op

>>20710792
Right, that's why he's talking about Dutch settlers from the first chapter...

>>20707448
It's war time and bombs are falling from the sky, what in the world possibly else could be making the scream

>>20711404
no, he doesnt

>>20712118
Uh huh

>>20712124
WRONG

>>20707448
>no one can even agree on what the screaming is
b8

How can anyone call Pynchon’s characters flat?

>people who can't write narratives or dialogue opt instead to write stream of consciousness bullshit
>other pseuds who think "big words = smart" pretend it's the greatest work ever
Many such cases

>>20712270
Do you know anyone like any of his characters in GR?

>>20712438
yeah, pynchon was one hep cat

>>20710842
>Pynchon lists everything piled onto his desk over months of mess and neglect
I guess DFW copied that for his first novel

>>20712297
He can write both narrative and dialogue, and the novel is overwhelmingly not stream-of-consciousness outside a few specific moments.
Why does it always seem like the most ardent anti-Pynch posters on this board have never even attempted to read anything beyond the same pages that get posted in every thread?

>>20712553
and col49 which he said he never read lol

>>20712662
yuck

>>20712662
god i fucking love mason & dixon so much, i got to reread it, this is just pure pleasure to read