/lit/ - Literature

M&D is pretty straight-forward, comparatively. People tend to get thrown off by the Olde Tyme style; but, once you get used to it, it's not a problem.

I think it's even more awesome than either of them, but that's just my opinion.

>>5120835
Not OP but I've heard this a lot and I just bought it and Im so excited. V. was really good and Im saving GR for last.

M&D is best Pynchon

>>5120893
nope.

>>5121394
What in God's fuck is that cover supposed to be?

>>5120764
It's significantly easier, although I have seen some weird theories I couldn't really understand about mathematical connections and stuff.
It's fantastic, though. Arguably better than GR.

I always felt a little weird and plebby for ranking Pynchon's big novels in this order, but

Mason & Dixon > The Crying of Lot 49 > Gravity's Rainbow

>>5121483
that cover makes about as much sense as the rest of the book, quite fitting really

>>5121550
I'm pissed I didn't get that cover. OP I think Mason & Dixon might be the most gorgeous book I've ever read, but I only finished up to part 1 because I had too much shit on my plate and I wasn't doing the boom justice. Personally I struggled more with it than Gravity's Rainbow, but I also read the first 250 pages of M&D before GR.

>>5121542
>big novels
>lot 49

>>5121568
I think he meant "big" as in "famous" or "popular"

>>5121603
is mason and dixon really more popular than V?

how could anyone like lot 49 more than GR?

>>5121624
Ask Harold Bloom.

>>5121677
when has harold bloom ever said lot 49 was better than GR?

>>5121688
First page of his guide to Thomas Pynchon.

"Pynchon is the greatest master of the negative Sublime at least since Faulkner and West, and if nothing besides Byron the Bulb in Gravity's Rainbow seems to me quite as perfect as all of The Crying of Lot 49, that may be because no one could hope to write the first authentic post-Holocaust novel, and achieve a total vision without fearful cost." - Harold Bloom

>>5121734
holy shit

do you have a link to the rest of the guide?

>>5121749
Oh man I hope that's real I've been meaning to look up what Bloom said about Pynchon for a while now and that more than delivers.

>>5120764
I've read both GR and MD and I think MD was somewhat easier. Still not a light read, but easier to keep track of what's going on and who's who, especially once you get past the Germanic capitalization. It does still have is maximalist style, but with a bit less ju!ping around. But it's a great read and you should definitely read it if you've enjoyed other Pynchon stuff.

>>5121749
>>5121762
http://lib.freescienceengineering.org/view.php?id=510996

Bloom doesn't talk about Mason & Dixon in his introduction, but his says in an interview at the A.V. Club

"I don’t know what I would choose if I had to select a single work of sublime fiction from the last century, it probably would not be something by Roth or McCarthy; it would probably be Mason & Dixon, if it were a full-scale book, or if it were a short novel it would probably be The Crying Of Lot 49. Pynchon has the same relation to fiction, I think, that my friend John Ashbery has to poetry: he is beyond compare."

Link to the interview: http://www.avclub.com/article/harold-bloom-on-iblood-meridiani-29214

TFW the guilt over your feel that '49 is the best pf Pynchon novels.

And then Bloom wanders into the scene ...

>>5121818
>needs critics to justify personal preferences

>>5121856

Apparently not, while held in high regard I've read almost nothing of Bloom.

I am guilty of occasionally using Vidal as my guide, but then I don't think Vidal liked Pynchon.

>>5121875
vidal is ok but honestly he says a lot of stupid shit about worthwhile authors who he didn't align with politically

>>5121889

Heh, yeah, no argument from me.

Still luvvim though.

>>5121818
On the subject of Lot 49 I tend to agree with Ruggles himself
"As is clear from the up-and-down shape of my learning curve, however, it was too much to expect that I'd keep on for long in this positive or professional direction. The next story I wrote was The Crying of Lot 49, which was marketed as a 'novel,' and in which I seem to have forgotten most of what I thought I'd learned up until then."

If you have a decent understanding of pre-Revolution American history you should be fine, beyond the anachronistic style. Knowing that will increase your enjoyment immensely because Pynchon cracks jokes about almost every major American figure of the time. Personally, I think its his funniest work. A good book to read before is "Drawing the Line: How Mason and Dixon Surveyed the Most Famous Border in America" by Edwin Danson. That will fill you in on every obscure reference Pychon makes to the nitty gritty details of the surveying.

Gravity's Rainbow > Crying of Lot 49 > V. > Inherent Vice > Vineland > Mason&Dixon > Bleeding Edge > Against The Day