/lit/ - Literature

>>3248152

Why the fuck is their random moon language in the middle of paragraphs in Ulysses? Why is he not writing the book in ENGLISH?

>>3248152
I can recite the first paragraph of Gravity's Rainbow from memory

Arguably, the dullest first page there is Infinite Jest's.

>>3248165
I like how clinically accurate the description of the first few pages of IJ are.

And the imagery of digestion and bodies that links forward repeatedly throughout the book for a school

INB4 hipsters "ironically" defend said works with ironic phrases like "2deep4u" and "pleb", and vague statements like "Pynchon, Joyce, DFW accomplished more in one sentence than Shakespeare did in his entire career"

>>3248165
Jesus Christ. That third sentence of the second paragraph of GR:

>Above him lift girders old as an iron queen, and glass somewhere far above that would let the light of day through.

What the holy fuck does that even mean? Is the author fucking high?

>>3248176
It's not that hard.... surely.

>>3248181
wtf is an iron queen

how to argue for Deep literature:
1) IT'S DEEP!
2) YOU OBVIOUSLY DON'T UNDERSTAND
3) I KNOW MORE ABOUT IT THAN YOU AND AM OBVIOUSLY MORE QUALIFIED
4) (repeat #1 and go back down again)

>>3248152
I actually think Gravity's Rainbow sounds interesting, but I'm waiting until I reach a higher level to have a go at it.

>>3248186
you're focusing on the wrong things. A iron queen, a majestic thing, I imagine a jagged, rusty crown with long, thin prongs that jut upward.

It's word association.

>>3248214
why are the girders old as the queen?

>>3248231
you're being pedantic.

>>3248176
An iron queen is a super old type of bed popular in prewar Britain. The glass is a reference to the pictured building. Yes, the author was supposedly high as a kite when he wrote it. I heard that he locked himself in a room for 3 weeks with tons of paper, a typewriter, tons of acid, and a model of a V-2 rocket. The sentence means that Pirate, the guy waking up from a dream, is coming to his senses and that the disorientingly high ceiling of the barracks he's in is comparable to the Crystal Palace. It's not really that hard to understand.

>>3248239
Wow, I got that way wrong.

>>3248245
Read one of the companion books alongside after your first readthrough, they're very helpful.

>>3248239
>>3248245
You know what we call writing that could be so easily misunderstood due to a lack of outside information?

Bad writing.

>>3248237
OHHH!! Le trickey hipster recycles his over used word "pedantic" yet again!

Oh silly hipster, /lit/'s not for kids like you....

>>3248253
You mean to understand the book, I have to read other books explaining it to me?
Too high maintenance for me. I usually just float from paragraph to paragraph, anyway.

IJ's is definitely the weakest. But that makes sense in light of the fact that the introduction is one of very few parts of the book written in first person.
I'm so looking forward to rereading that book

>>3248239
>An iron queen is a super old type of bed popular in prewar Britain

I demand a picture for clarity.

Pics or you're full of shit.

>>3248239
You got served!: >>3248256

>>3248239
Is there some source where you can find stories about the writing of Gravity's Rainbow? I imagine there's not a whole lot of stories, it being Pynchon and all.

>i'm dumb therefore these books are bad

>>3248263
Hahah look at this hipster! Trying to pretend he likes the bore-fest infinite jest so much, that he would read it again!

OH HIPSTER! SO CRAYZAY!

>>3248279
OHHHHH le sneaky troll strikes again by implying that the reader doesn't understand badly written books because they are "too stupid".

HAHAHAHAH hipster pro right here, hipsta pro!

>>3248279
Haha! Seriously! Anyone who hasn't studied English pre-war bed design shouldn't be reading grown-up books like these!

I am genuinely confused as to why /lit/ is the most hateful board.

>>3248258
>using the word "le".
>calling me a hipster for using a word appropriately.

>>3248280
You're pretty fired up today, aren't you? Feeling insecure about something? Why can't I possibly like IJ - not a particularly difficult or obscure book by any standard?

>>3248285
>>3248288
*sigh* you guys are the silliest evar!

Wish I could be as cool as you! I just don't have the sexual stamina to stay as sarcastic as long as you guys do.

I admit, I'm too much of a pleb for Infinite Jest.
So far I read about 50 pages and I didn't get it at all.

Take that scene where the tennis player has his interview and then a seizure. Can somebody tell me what I'm supposed to get out of this scene?

>>3248282
dude you're just stupid accept it and go back to hunger games or s/t

ok, its bad writing because you have not been educated enough to know certain things? Yikes.

>>3248291
>Why can't I possibly like My little pony?- not a particularly difficult or obscure show by any standard?

You're not the only tricky troll you le hipster! Can't wait for your next awesome sarcastic mega troll comment!

>>3248214
>not difficult, bullshit explanation
>>3248239
correct

Yet gets it totally wrong

This book is so specific it's silly.

You guys just need to read the wiki!

http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_3-7

>3.05 iron queen
>a queensize bed made of iron. Hardly made after 1900. Queen Victoria had a famous brass (and iron) one in the Crystal Palace! "Beds made of hollow tubes of steel, iron, and brass came to be manufactured in the mid 19th century. These were to be used both by soldiers and civilians. Their main advantage at that time was that unlike wooden beds, these could not be infested with bedbugs. Queen Victoria's brass bed at the Crystal Palace has been the most famous antique brass bed.
By the late 19th century, metal beds were nearly out of fashion."

>Also, In The Odyssey, when Odysseus goes to the Underworld, he refers to Persephone as the Iron Queen. Of the four gods of Empedocles' elements it is the name of Persephone alone that is taboo, for the Greeks knew another face of Persephone as well. She was also the terrible Queen of the dead, whose name was not safe to speak aloud, who was named simply "The Maiden".

>>3248298
That's the last scene of the book, chronologically, it's supposed to make sense as you go along.
I think the main reason people struggle with IJ is because they're looking for a level of difficulty or abstruseness that isn't there, even though the book seems (for the first couple of hundred pages) like it is.

>>3248296
Oh, but you're just so catty! Just how tight are those panties? Are they silk and lace? I bet they are. You sound like a silk and lace kind of guy.

>>3248303
here it is.

I liked Infinite jest. I couldn't get into GR or Ulysses.

I don't read shit like this. I only read things by Tao Lin, Sam Pink etc.

All people read for is to learn moral lessons and get some feels, so why not do it in the most easily accessibble way?

>>3248325
Because some people like to do it in style. And some don't need their boring lives projected back at them in the fiction they read.

>>3248163
That's Latin you neanderthal.

Ulysses/Infinite Jest/Gravity's Rainbow: Baseball
Game of Thrones/The Dark Tower/American Gods: pic related

>>3248378
Answer the fucking question. Why is he putting language in a book for people that speak ENGLISH

>>3248501
Reference to Catholic Church stuff.

>>3248501
go away and don't come back here ever

>>3248515
Fuck you. If he had written Chinese instead of Latin you would be criticizing it the same.

>>3248515
SHIT NIGGA. YOU WANT TO READ THIS BOOK? MAKE SURE YOU KNOW 2 LANGUAGES! ESPECIALLY A DEAD ONE! BETTER GO LEARN GREEK TOO! FUCKING MONOLANGUAGE PLEBS! DEAD LANGUAGES ARE ALWAYS RELEVANT!!!

Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with /lit/ today. Flooded by angry kids or what?

>>3248534
I just want people to admit these books are good but not great and that they ask too much from the reader.

>>3248542
>they ask too much from the reader
What do you mean by this?

>>3248542
why do they have to please you in particular

>>3248534
Woah, your hipster level is over 9000!!!!

>>3248517
No. Joyce's work incorporated a lot of stuff pertinent to Irish culture during hist time. Just look at all the references to things like Parnell in Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Catholicism is, as I'm sure you know, pretty big in Ireland. In addition, Ulysses gets his name from the Latin name for Odysseus. A Latin sentence somewhere basically to be expected.

>>3248517
>>3248522

>Hurrrrrrrrrrrr I don't want to have to use my brain or learn things, I just want lots rape and dragons communicated in simple 3rd grade level English sentences

It's pretty obvious that both Joyce and Pynchon (and DFW, I guess) were aware that some readers were going to have to do some extra legwork, and that some allusions would be lost. That's not a problem. It's not like as soon as you reach a passage in a text you don't understand you lose all ability to understand any part of the text from that point hence. There is an element of instant gratification that these books won't provide, but to make that into a broader point of elitism, or to feel the need to describe them as 'not good' on those grounds alone, is doing yourself a disservice.

Though I expect I'll be called a 'hipster' for saying so.

>>3248570
I think you make a good point, but my question is, why wouldn't they want to make their book accessible to as many people as possible (or at least, more people)?

Instead of saying "iron queen" couldn't he have just said "metal bed"?

>>3248591
why would they?

>>3248591
Because same something is as old as a metal bed doesn't make sense.

>>3248591
So we don't need a fuckin' guidebook to understand what the author is trying to say maybe?

>i don't understand it so the intellectuals must be conspiring against me, the common everyday working class hero

>>3248607
You obviously didn't read
>>3248239
and
>>3248309

iron queen = a pre-1800 metal bed

>>3248614
Hipster

>>3248623
The word "hipster" has now been mentioned 12 times in this thread. I officially declare these three books hipster-tier

>>3248617
Which is an old thing. Which therefore makes sense. However, to then change it to "the girders were as old as something very old" is also dumb

>Books that require another book to make itself understandable

Heh. Hipster's will love that one, so much oozy irony.

>>3248614
Academia and intellectuals would never conspire together to collectively pretend to like stupid ugly shit like parrots and lemmings!

>>3248640
Haha, I wrote a completely separate book just to make sense of the next one I'm writing!

I call it: The Sequel

I read Tolstoy

>>3248611
2deep4u

Seriously, maybe you're just a stupid fucking cunt and you wouldn't get what the author is trying to say no matter what way it's conveyed

>>3248649
heh.

>>3248617
Ha! I just found the name for my new band!

Pic related

>>3248659
>you wouldn't get what the author is trying to say
OH BOY!!!!! HERE WE GOOOOOOoooOOOOoooOO

>>3248660
Truly a banal dad-rock super group.

>>3248649
HOLY SHIT!

GUYS

HEY GUYS

WHAT

WHAT IF

WHAT IF HE MADE THE BOOK SO CONFUSING SO THAT HE COULD MAKE MORE MONEY THROUGH THE SALE OF A GUIDE BOOK!!!

>>3248671
Shut up moron! He only did that for the plebs! Plebs like you!

>>3248678
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! PLEB STATUS REVEALED!!! I'M RUIIIIIIIINED!!!!

>>3248682
I epically puned you! That's pretty easy though, since I'm on the higher levels.

>>3248691
mfw

>>3248256
Lolwut.

/b/ quality thread.
For shame, you guys. For shame.

>>3248704
You need a guidebook for this thread bro? Or is the point I made just 2deep4u?

>>3248715

>>3248152
>Infinite Jest

Most boring book in the universe.

>>3248309
>that reference
damn

>>3248542
>they ask too much from the reader

>>3248715
Nah, I was trying to communicate an incredulity that someone thinks writing is bad if they can't understand because they don't know the terms being used. Maybe that idea is 2deep4u.

>>3248746
Man, this is just like when Keetah left the village with Gordon but had to come back because he she couldn't acclimate like him.

Oh, what? You didn't read "I Heard the Owl Call My Name" by Margaret Craven?

You dirty, uncultured pleb. What the fuck are you even doing on a literature board?

>>3248309
Ok, so let's straighten this out.

>Above him lift girders as old as an iron queen

So he's basically saying "the girders are as old as an 19th century styled bed, one that queen Victoria had"

Do you have any idea how incredibly stupid that is?

The Byron the Immortal Light-bulb story from Gravity's Rainbow is probably one of my favorite tales ever. That book could probably be my favorite just from that part alone.

>>3248775
'When M-Day finally does roll around, you can bet Byron’s elated. He has passed the time hatching some really insane grandiose plans—he’s gonna organize all the Bulbs, see, get him a power base in Berlin, he’s already hep to the Strobing Tactic, all you do is develop the knack (Yogic, almost) of shutting off and on at a rate close to the human brain’s alpha rhythm, and you can actually trigger an epileptic fit! True, Byron has had a vision against the rafters of his ward, of 20 million Bulbs, all over Europe, at a given synchronizing pulse arranged by one of his many agents in the Grid, all these Bulbs beginning to strobe together, humans thrashing around the 20 million rooms like fish on the beaches of Perfect Energy—Attention, humans, this has been a warning to you. Next time, a few of us will explode. Ha-ha. Yes we’ll unleash our Kamikaze squads! You’ve heard of the Kirghiz Light? well that’s the ass end of a firefly compared to what we’re gonna—oh, you haven’t heard of the—oh, well, too bad. Cause a few Bulbs, say a million, a mere 5% of our number, are more than willing to flame out in one grand burst instead of patiently waiting out their design hours….So Byron dreams of his Guerrilla Strike Force, gonna get Herbert Hoover, Stanley Baldwin, all of them, right in the face with one coordinated blast…'

I was in tears with laughter

>>3248775
americlaps are so easily amused.

>>3248758
See, the difference is that I just don't get the reference. You didn't get the reference, and then decided the writing was bad because of that.

>>3248798
>Gravity's Rainbow
>easily amused

>>3248768
0/10

you can go away now

>>3248800
Part of being an author is making assumptions of what your audience knows and doesn't know and writing accordingly.

>>3248152

Haven't read Gravity's Rainbow but that opening is enthralling. What are you talking about suggesting it sounds boring?

>>3248542
Not really. I'd say it was impossible to "ask too much of the reader," but Finnegans Wake proved that it was in fact possible. Nothing else has done it, though.

>>3248807
nothing says defeated idiot quite like "0/10 go away!!!"

>>3248809
Think of it like an impressionist painting.
You may not know what a certain phrase means exactly but you have a vague sense of something in the context it's used, much like the brushstrokes of an Impressionist painter.

>>3248809
Or you simply write, and accept that some people (In the case of authors like these, pretty much everyone) will have to do some outside work. Sometimes that extra work can be part of the author's point.

>>3248826
That is a terrible analogy that doesn't apply to the literary garbage you are referencing.

Impressionist paintings are pleasing to the eyes, and put a lack of emphasis on detail in sacrifice for sensation.

GR is a train wreck abstraction painting.

>>3248843
The prose in GR is pleasing to the minds eye, and although vague at times this lets you build a greater picture through word association and key phrases.

It is incredibly like Impressionism

>>3248875
Impressionism isn't in anyway about "vagueness"
you dumb fucker.

will /lit/ ever refuse the bait of even the most uncreative of trolls? stay tuned.

>>3248884
You're right, it's exceedingly concise

Just read the beginning of Gravity's Rainbow in that picture.

...How is this difficult/vague/confusing at all?

>>3248893

or maybe...

IT'S JUST BADLY WRITTEN

>>3248901

iron queen

>>3248893
Gravity's rainbow is:
Blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah= blah

Impressionism is:
lh= blah

>>3248913
Persephone. Read the Odyssey sometime.

>>3248889
The issue is that once someone takes the bait of the obvious troll, less subtle trolls (and sometimes people who actually agree with what the trolls are saying) show up, and then it just snowballs.

>>3248932
wrong

pre-1800 metal bed

>>3248197

Man, fuck this, I'm reading it and enjoying it.

I don't mind not getting all the stuff, I read it for fun (and to english more well).

>>3249012
obvious troll is obvious.

>>3248591
No. The term iron queen and its two connotations are incredibly important to that passage and the entire book. Removing it to reach a larger audience would be folly; it's already part of the Western Canon anyhow, what larger audience could it get?

After GRRM has a heart attack and Rowling sates the hole in her heart with fucking instead of writing, people will still be reading Gravity's Rainbow. It will outlive your pop fiction, I assure you, and by doing such will reach far more people.

>>3248647
>I know all there is to know about painting because I looked at a Romanticist piece once and really liked it

The sad part is that you can just read a short study of Kandinsky and learn what he was trying to say.

A faggot comes across the sky. That's Pynchon.

I imagine David Foster Wallace nutting inside a groupie's pussy, his lips tight as though he were whistling and breathing rapidly through his nose. He's so glad he kept the bandana on, which caught the sweat beads and wet strands of his long hair. He puts on his metal frame glasses in a hurry, using one hand, careful not to let cum drip on his bed sheet. The point is, he's a faggot.

Joyce is three-fifths of a faggot, salvaged by Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. By majority, he is, inevitably, a faggot.

Come on, guys. These guys are faggots. You guys are better than any of these three faggots. I'd take any of you over these three faggots. No homo.

>>3249044
Contrary to what this guy may think
>>3249108
You are a gigantic faggot.

>>3248785
This makes no fucking sense.

roachguy thread detected

>>3249195
haha he's totally le fag amirite le fellow (s)/lit/ poster

fucking le hipsters trying to have fun with things that aren't le good

>>3249108
Good DFW review and I like him. The Pale King goes into the sweating thing explicitly and at length, which I enjoyed reading. Like any faggot would.
Also 10/10 for hanging himself on his back patio w/ a belt, after duct taping his hands together.

>>3248489
But baseball is boring and CM Punk is awesome.

And I like GR.

>>3248815
How does it ask too much from the reader, when you can simply choose to stop reading and it won't be offended?

>>3249205
>blinking lights can cause seizures
>he's going to get control of ALL THE LIGHTS and blink them really fast as a kind of attack, like a seizure-bomb or something
It makes perfect sense.