/lit/ - Literature

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Pathetic.

Yeah, he's a pretty awful author. Find him hard to take seriously as well.

>>4121254

This is why nobody takes this board seriously.

>>4121277
Pynchon is legitimately awful, though.,

>>4121297
>Mike Fallopian
hurr so quirky and nonconformist

Postmodern literature is the worst thing. Just the worst thing.

All my literature professors love it. Like, they talk about how much they love it at the start of every class. A generation or two from now, english majors will read this book in class while going over how Metal Gear Solid relates to Pynchon's themes of post-globalization.

I think it's a fun read so far. Right now, everyone's eating it up like it's god's own golden jizz; but I think in a few months it's gonna get critically panned all across the board.

How does it compare to V. Or Gravity's Rainbow?

>>4121354
If English majors are talking about fucking Metal Gear Solid a generation or two from now, we are fucking doomed.

>>4121377
That's the joke. Not the poster's joke, the joke of postmodernism.

>>4121354
>>4121377
Speaking of which, why have there not been any MGS novels? It would be perfect for pulp style thriller, and they could more easily expanded the lore.

>>4121438
Because Kojima is too into cinema. Although MGS2 did have some in-game ebooks.

I agree with you though. It's a shame considering other franchises like Hitman and Ass Creed got at least one novel. Starcraft, Diablo, and Halo have dozens.

At least I have my dot hack novels.

And Pynchon has pretty pleb taste in vidya

>>4121438
Because the retards who care about the "lore" likely aren't literate.

I ordered it but I don't know if I should read it.
Should I save it and sell it 50 years from now on?

>>4121354
>A generation or two from now, english majors will read this book in class while going over how Metal Gear Solid relates to Pynchon's themes of post-globalization.

Ahaha, not fuckin' likely. New white novels don't stand a chance in academia. We're lucky they allow Wallace and McCarthy at this point, but soon enough they'll be phased out.

easily the worst pinecone book

>>4121447
What video games does Pynchon play?

Pynchon mentions All Your Base in this book. I think this means the literary tradition is complete.

it's not his fault that culture of 2001 is the pile of shit it is

he's just cramming his prose with cultural references of the times he writes about, as he always did and it would be unthinkable without the vidya

>>4121593
>they allow Wallace
They do??

>>4122088
So is this fiction or non-fiction?

just in case http://www32.zippyshare.com/v/70616385/file.html

>>4122361
nice

>>4122361
>>4122381
Is it safe?

>>4122387
only one way for you to find out...

>>4122399
... to ask again?
Is it safe? Please, I'm scared.

So why exactly are so many /lit/terers so excited about this book? There are about 5 threads about it. Is there something special about it I don't know? Is the author an anon or something?

>>4122427
Yeah, the author is confirmed to have posted here.

>>4122427
/lit/ likes pynchon.
I've been here for around 2 years, so I don't know what was the case before that, but I've only seen love for him here.

>>4122403
Safe.

>>4122427
Because Pynchon is /lit/'s Neutral Milk Hotel

Because /lit/ is populated by college kids who can do nothing but talk about the book they have been told to read or the book someone told them was the pinnacle of literature

Because /lit/ has exactly the same slavish devotion to following and completing tiers of quality like every other sheep-headed board on 4chan where each individual desperately attempts to be like all the others who have experienced x and now realise everything that is not x is 'pleb-tier'

Which is why every day there are twenty threads on Pynchon, Nietzsche, Moby Dick, Infinite Jest, etc, etc, etc.

>>4122436
Yes, thank you.

>>4122441
>Because Pynchon is /lit/'s Neutral Milk Hotel

No that's Infinite Jest

>>4122444
I was honest to god typing the exact same thing when you posted this.

>>4121069
I lost my shit at

>AMBOPEDIA
>Misha and Grisha
>Medellín kids
>Pokemon being a West Indian proctologist
>the time travel alien child
>the description of the karaoke

>>4122441
Everything about this post is uneducated and false.

Say what you want to about DFW or Nietzsche, Pynchon is actually enjoyable. The entirety of your post reads like "I have no read Pynchon, I have not read Pynchon, I have not read Pynchon" for a few inane paragraphs--not exactly like a record skipping, but more like a actor recording themselves saying the same line a few different ways.

Pynchon would be well-liked, whether or not academia had its poorly designed stamp-o-approval on it or not. Evidence of this can be found in the Vineland and Inherent Vice appreciation threads. Both books were panned by all and sundry, don't you know. But those books, and Bleeding Edge, too, are good and enjoyable.

We are in love. Fuck the critics.

>>4122463
>the description of the karaoke

Made me wonder if a suit can actually be made out of coal.

>>4122465
>We are in love. Fuck the critics.
My favourite sentence of Gravity's Rainbow as well.

>>4122465
Nietzsche is enjoyable also

>>4122465
Plenty of critics liked Inherent Vice actually. The fact that it's easier to read doesn't make it bad

Can anyone explain Pynchon to someone who hasn't read any of his books?

He's like a pop-culture satirist?

>>4122490
He writes long, difficult books with non-linear plots that touch on a wide variety of themes and incorporate a broad array of knowledge

>>4122490
All of his novels are quite different, so it's hard to describe the "genre" of Pynchon.

He is known for creating vast amounts of characters, each part of one in dozens of plot lines. There is no central context in his novels: they're set in one scene and then another; follow one character and then another; and flip between past, present, and future in paragraphs and sentences. His individual books aren't binded by one particular plot, but by the themes he wants to cover. Nothing you read will be particularly salient, but it's all interconnected and therefore indispensable.

Maximalism, basically.

On a structuralist level, his prose switches style so often that you'll find yourself absolutely loving some parts while hating others.

Reading Pynchon is kind of a chore, but that can be said for most post-modern authors. Most people suggest starting with Crying of Lot 49. After that, my suggestion would be to just pick up any novel and start reading. If you stick with it, you're bound to find chapters and sections you really enjoy.

>>4122502
Is that Zadie Smith in the foreground?!

>>4122502
also Jeffrey Eugenides in the background.

That must have been a killer party.

>>4122555
yeah in that it's filled with a bunch of people I'd like to kill

>>4122566
>not wanting to marry zadie

>>4122502

Do you think this book price will rise after a few decades?

>>4122610
Is that why you want to buy it?

>>4122618
I already did.

>>4122465
But I have read Pynchon. I have read Gravity's Rainbow, which I loved, and I have read the Crying of Lot 49, which is ok.

Regardless, you seem to be confused - you seem to be suggesting I dislike Pynchon or think it unworthy. Nothing could be further from the truth. What I dislike is the /lit/ culture of dick-sucking and obsessing over him, and I dislike the fact that American culutre and college lit culture draws people to /lit/ to repeatedly discuss him and a handful of other authors. You explicitly accept this with your closing statement
>we

>>4122640
Yeah I do wish we'd talk about a wider variety of authors but oh well

>>4122640
So, now /lit/izens are whining about discussion concerning authors they <i>like</i>? Just what, excuse me, in the fuck?

>>4122478
>sentence

It begs the question - does Pynchon really love Metal Gear Solid and is Kojima 'his god' or did he just google what games contain which themes in order for his character to regurgitate them for the reader?

Apparently he talks about anime and video games in the book, cool

>>4122926
That was a character who said that. You shouldn't confuse a character's opinions with the author's.

This reminds me of when Slavoj Zizek talked about Yugioh in his book on Hegel

>>4123028
Either way we know now that Thomas Pynchon watches anime and plays Japanese video games, cool

>>4122433
>confirmed
For the last fucking time, that was just a particularly astute student. Or even if it was Pinecone messing with us, there's no way to really know.

Unless there's some other legendary old thread I don't know about.

>>4123033
I was just making a joke out of that guy's silly troll, lol, don't worry

>>4123031

As time goes on I'm convinced Pynchon is a /b/tard.

>>4123035
Maybe old /b/. But that's a very big maybe

>>4123041

Well, yeah, I imagine if he were still on the *chans he'd be browsing 99 or maybe 420.

>>4123033

You got a screencap of that thread? I'd like to see for myself

>>4123045
>Well, yeah, I imagine if he were still on the *chans he'd be browsing 99 or maybe 420.

I don't think so. I don't think he'd be on 4chan

>>4123049
Or any of the clone websites I mean

I don't think Pynchon really cares about these weird, somewhat insular internet communities, I mean, the closest he got was an All Your Base reference and that whole thing extended way beyond SA anyway

>>4123041
The time period in "Bleeding Edge" is 2001 and early 2002. Pre /b/. More like usenet, telnet, bulletin boards, early web scripting (html/CSS/perl) and gaming.

>>4123045
It's in the archive: http://fuuka.warosu.org/lit/thread/S667543

There was another one he posted in, I think it was him, where he said he was some obscure author whose name was in The Guardian or something twice for some controversial book he published, but he said he doubted anyone really wanted to search through Guardian headlines to find out his name, and he was right. I'm gonna try to find it...

>>4123036
Sry. Poe's Law and everything, I always get caught up with sarcasm on the internet.

Got it, a link of threads the guy supposedly posted in: http://fuuka.warosu.org/lit/thread/S3056931#p3057722

>>4123084
god that guy is a dork

>>4123019
>video games and anime
why would a literary leviathan like pynchon write about such pleb shit

why the fuck has my copy not arrived yet from fucking amazon.ca im so angry about all of this

>>4123107
Because he's that good.

i've searched the archive and apparently this review hasnt been posted here yet

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/buecher/themen/evgeny-morozov-reads-pynchon-s-bleeding-edge-the-deepest-of-webs-12572137.html

>>4123107
He also writes about comic books and Star Trek

>>4123101
You should just get off of 4chan right now.

>>4123168
can't, i'm psychosexually tethered to it. 4chan is one of my fetishes

>>4123168
THOUGH I GUESS YOU COULD SAY IM GETTING OFF /ON/ IT AS IT WERE HYUKHYUKHYUK

I just read the first chapter, and this book is so hard to follow because the writing style is so fucked up. For example:

The intercom buzzes . “There’s some Reg somebody here don’t have an appointment?”

How is this even a grammatically correct sentence? It's reads so weird.

>>4123226
That is a line of Negro dialect, Pynchon style. He does use a lot of question marks in declarative sentences of dialogue. I guess that's just how he hears people?

>>4123268
Even without the question mark the sentence doesn't make sense to me.

>>4123285
Someone named Reg doesn't have an appointment. The person asking/declaring this is, in a way, making sure this Reg person does not have an appointment [or was expected otherwise].

Why do I feel like I'm translating Wu-Tang lyrics.

>>4123141
I liked the review, but the reviewer (not Pynchon) spelled "Promis" wrong. There's no "e" at the end of the name of the actual software to which Pynchon was referring. It's worth noting because Promis may very well be an early iteration of the Prism surveillance suite disclosed by Snowden.

>>4123323
Nobody would ever say a sentence like that in real life.
"There’s some Reg somebody here don’t have an appointment?"
It's like two sentences without a period, or a comma, or any sort of connector word.

>>4123329
Let me take it apart for you, son:

"There's some Reg somebody here"
There is someone named something close to Reg
"don't have an appointment?"
They don't have an appointment.

>>4123336
I understand the meaning, I'm just saying nobody talks like that in real life.

>>4123352
Nonsense.

>>4123354
It's not nonsense are you talking about?

>>4123366
Exactly.

>>4123368
Exactly what? My sentence isn't something a normal person would say.

>>4123379
>when you implying the implications and u Mom come home and make hte spaghetti

Ghetto people are people too.

>>4123379
It sounds like something I'd say as I'm an inarticulate doofus

>>4123226
You must never have worked with black people in NYC. They most definitely speak like that.

>>4123329
I haven't read it yet, but that sentence seems like something I could hear. Either "There's some Reg somebody here - don't have an appointment?" or "There's some Reg somebody here [who does not] have an appointment?" I expect it's likely the second, since the first would probably have had the hyphen. The second is obviously not correct in standard english, but people do speak like that sometimes. Think "I didn't never do nothing." People often say things that break grammatical rules.

If it's the "some Reg somebody" that's confusing, then it means, at least to my mind, "someone named Reg something," as in, their name is Reg, and the speaker doesn't know Reg's last name or who they are in any terms besides that one name.

The question mark indicates a querying tone, like the person is asking for instructions, which sounds like it would make sense in context.

>>4123858
>>4123825
>>4123409
>>4123400
>>4123379
>>4123368
>>4123366
>>4123354
>>4123352
>>4123336
>>4123329
>>4123323
>>4123285
>>4123268
>>4123226

You all really know how to take all the fun in Pynchon, roll it into a ball, and then flick it away like it's a booger.

>>4123352
i think people do talk like that in real life. but i think the punctuation is fucked in that sentence, it actually sounds like
"There's some Reg somebody here, don't have an appointment"
if it still doesn't make sense to you just read it out loud over and over
i actually had to do that for Paradise Lost.

>>4123107
I don't think you understand post-modernism

>>4123329
"There's some Reg somebody (person) here [who] don't (doesn't) have an appointment?"

the ? is upward inflection. not so much a question as a raise in tone at the end of a sentence.

it's really not that dificult. real human dialogue doesn't often translate to text very well especially when it's ebonicised and he's just typing it as one would hear it

>>4123866
What, by explaining the syntax of some dialogue for someone who was perplexed by it?

How the hell does that "take the fun out of it" at all? It's completely irrelevant to my own enjoyment of the book, and I'd imagine that getting what something meant would only improve the other person's enjoyment.

>>4123285
The intercom(unicator) buzzes. [This allows you to know that a communication is coming though from one party to another]

"There's some Reg(first part of an identifier cut short, or possibly an abbreviation of regular) somebody (second part replaced with a generalized pronoun instead of a specific name) here [pause is taken for breath, a natural period] don't (do not) have an appointment? [The question mark turns the dismissive declarative statement uncertain and interrogative towards the other end of the intercom(unicator), allowing that Reg somebody might just be Regular Someone to whoever is on the other end.]

>>4123866
Ending every quote with a question mark isn't fun, it's makes it incredibly annoying to read.

>>4123959
>[pause is taken for breath, a natural period]
No where does it say this in the sentence.

>>4123967
It's shorthand for a certain way of speaking. It's telling you how the specific characters are saying their lines. Without them, an entire flavor of the characters would be lost.

Out of curiousity, do you happen to be autistic?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_rising_terminal

>asian rapper refers to himself as a "gongsta"

>>4124113
Yeah

>>4122465

>We are in love. Fuck the critics.

I love you.

>>4124113
>It's shorthand for a certain way of speaking.

You mean it's a phonetic interpretation of one dialect through another. This is actually a very classist, potentially racist way of writing and I don't appreciate Pynchon doing it

>>4124252
>This is actually a very classist, potentially racist way of writing
You say it like it's a bad thing.

>>4124280
You say that like (s)he
>said
That

>>4124252

Linguistics student here, you don't actually know what the fuck you're talking about.

>>4124119
I wonder if Pinecone recorded that rap himself. It's got a decent flow (for parody)

>>4124252
>I don't appreciate Pynchon doing it

You should write his publisher a very stern letter. Don't forget to add a photo of you finger wagging and looking unappreciative. You sound like the type.