/lit/ - Literature

well, did you enjoy it?

>>6728596
I did, but that is irrelevant since I have read an essentially different book.

>>6728600
well naturally, but if the book that you did read was good, then be happy that you just read a good book

>>6728592
Pynchon isn't a big words and flowery prose kind of author. You should give him a shot in English.

You're posting on an English site, so are presumably know the language, so why didn't you read it in English in the first place?

>>6728639
The guy has the reputation to be hard to read.

>>6728592
You seem to have a decent command of the English language. Start reading it in English. It'll be worth it.

>>6728654
Pynchon is pretty easy compared to Joyce.

>>6728661
But now that I have already read it (or something close enough) I'll never have the surprise of first discovery
Seriously I blew my first shot at Pynchon ;_;

>>6728701

Vineland is the best entry Pynchon as it's less of a herculean task.

>>6728707
Next I intend to read Mason & Dixon

the dude who translated GR, M&D and ATD to portuguese (brazilian) said he sent long list of questions and pynchon always answered them explaining everything in a very detailed way.

>tfw I'll never have the chance to ask tommy about some plot details in v.

>>6728665

>A is not as hard as B
>A is easy

...
...
...

>>6728592
>reading translations of Pynchon

LOL! LOL! LOL!

>>6728714
good choice, it's even better than Gravity's Rainbow.

>>6728592
>being European

>>6728714
Kek I can't imagine Mason and Dixon in French.

>>6728592
>translations

fire those pistols

>>6728636
>isn't a flowery prose kind of author

You obviously haven't read Pynchon..

>>6728742
>being a fat burger

>have the second best literary tradition available in your native language
>read something in another language

you really fucked up. i bet you haven't even read all of zola yet

>>6728801
He messed up by reading the language with the best literary tradition?

>>6728801
I read Germinal and La Débacle, the latter is really underrated these days and a quite good read

>>6728811
well english is the best literary tradition and op seems to be competent enough to handle easier prose (steinbeck) in its native language, but chose to read a translation of one of the more difficult works. doesnt make sense.

like i have enough french to read l'etranger or candide but im going to hold off on proust because what would I do? read it in english translation lol

>>6728784
Nabokov is flowery, Pynchon isn't.

>>6728592
don't feel bad, not too many of us will get to read Proust, Rimbaud, Celine etc in the original French

>>6728592
Hahahaha

Serves you right frog

>>6728701

just read the crying of lot 49 or V in english

>>6728592

Lol, unless the translator is Baudelaire, you best be sticking with the original. I envy you for being able to read Poe in French.

>>6728969
He is sometimes.

>It wasn't always so. In the trenches of the First World War, English men came to love one another decently, without shame or make-believe, under the easy likelihoods of their sudden deaths, and to find in the faces of other young men evidence of otherworldly visits, some poor hope that may have helped redeem even mud, shit, the decaying pieces of human meat. . . It was the end of the world, it was total revolution (though not quite in the way Walter Rathenau had announced): every day thousands of the aristocracy new and old, still haloed in their ideas of right and wrong, went to the loud guillotine of Flanders, run day in and out, on and on, by no visible hands, certainly not those of the people-an English class was being decimated, the ones who'd volunteered were dying for those who'd known something and hadn't, and despite it all, despite knowing, some of them, of the betrayal, while Europe died meanly in its own wastes, men loved. But the life-cry of that love has long since hissed away into no more than this idle and bitchy faggotry. In this latest War, death was no enemy, but a collaborator. Homosexuality in high places is just a carnal afterthought now, and the real and only fucking is done on paper. .

I write French worse than you write English but can read French novels just fine, so I imagine you could read it in English.

>>6729665
A non-Native speaker, assuming they've been fluent for a few years, should be able to make sense of this. Pynchon at his most "overwritten" is still less obscured than Joyce, Nabokov, or McCarthy for example.

>>6728665
I can't be the only person who found GR harder than Ulysses.

>>6729750
What could possibly have been so difficult in GR?

>>6729176
this. The only time I can think of where the translation is supposed to be better than the original.

>>6728717
M&D and AtD's translations are GOAT, so is IV (though done by a different translator, same guy who did Infinite Jest I think).

Avoid V., it's shit.

As for the rest, well, it's cheaper to buy them in english, if you have the luck to find any of them for sale.

Also, Britto (AtD, GR, M&D) and Galindo (IV) did the new Penguin translation of Ulysses. While I read it in english and recommend everyone to do the same, I strongly recommend you to get it, since it's a great help when reading difficult passages of the original text.

>>6729744
Sure. I'm just saying that he can be flowery. Though really I'd say Nabokov, despite using more poetic expressions is typically a lot more straightforward than Pynchon who can get very abstract, even when he uses simpler language.

Neither of them are Joyce at his most convoluted though.

>>6729750
Gravity's Rainbow is much easier than Ulysses. It just uses a lot of esoteric information. Really, if you read V. first and have at least a slightly functional knowledge of basic tarot, horoscopes, kabbalah, world mythology, various forms of mysticism and some other topics you should "get" what he was going for more often than not.

>>6729755
>>6729785

tbh, I've read quite a lot since GR (just finished Ulysses two weeks ago), so that's why I might have found it easier, but a lot of times, there were these jumps in the narrative in GR that quite confused me, specially during Slothrop's stint at the zone (beginning of third book? I guess). Still loved the book though, plan to re-read it later this year.

>>6728592
>reading GR
>reading forced Anglo meme book
lmao
what next, Infinite Jest? kek

>>6729794
>but a lot of times, there were these jumps in the narrative in GR that quite confused me
Had you read any Pynchon before GR? I found the digressions standard fare by the time I got to GR.

>>6728606
This. Woolf would be very disappointed.

>>6728793
Not realising Un Perm' au Casino Hermann Goering was never a Perm' at Hermann Goering Casino & Resort.

>>6729819

>HURR GR IS A MEME BOOK
So you made that Ayn Rand thread, huh?

>>6730268
>Un Perm

MFW amerifats think perm is a masculine noun in French
MFW even pynecone got tricked
MFW I have no face

>>6728731
I'm 200 pages into the Romanian translation. Feels like fapping dry on a cut dick.

>>6729665
He often is. No idea what >>6728636 is talking about.

>>6728592

Lol dude, what the fuck were you expecting? Top-tier /lit/erati works like GR, Ulysses, IJ, Borges etc. all are very hard to translate and will never reach the same level as the original. You already know English, so why the fuck not read it in English? Your English not good enough? Then start with the /lit/ starter kit and tackle GR after 100 or so books in English.