/lit/ - Literature

>>7040711
>Did people here genuinely like the book?
Yes. Thought CoL49 was his worst too, so.

they just liked the loli sex and shit eating scenes

I tried reading GR years ago and hated it. The guy can write but I got tired of the weird shit for the sake of weird shit.

>>7040721
>shit eating scenes
that was pretty intense lol, I read that he didn't get the pulitzer solely for this scene.
>>7040748

>The guy can write but I got tired of the weird shit for the sake of weird shit.
it felt like that for me as well. I didn't mind it much when there was still a story going on, but after a while the storyline kind of dissolved and you felt like reading page after page of super weird short stories. It had a couple of strong moments like the part that happens around the casino and the double integral-shaped rocket factory but overall it felt like try-hard randomness.

>>7040711
Why didn't you like V.??

GR is difficult as fuck tbh.

>>7040852
what's so difficult about it? trying to piece together a coherent theme or thesis statement out of a hodgepodge of pomo surrealism? because for all the dozens of GR threads that get posted weekly I don't think I've read a single post about what it's trying to say. just a bunch of kiddies thinking they're big boys now.

prove me wrong though

>>7040852
>Why didn't you like V.??
it really didn't speak to me on any level. The storyline of course isn't what makes Pynchon books Pynchon books but it helps to have at least some coherency if you go for 600 pages. Pynchon can obviously write very well, but what he wrote was mostly somewhere between complete randomness and an attempt at very dark humor. Maybe that's what postmodernism is, and maybe it just isn't for me but I didn't like it either way.

>>7040777
You should like you still read did plot too much. That's okay, don't force it, but consider trying GR again later

>>7040870
this tbh. he wrote portions of it on lsd; there is no deep meaning to it

>>7040892
>he wrote portions of it on lsd;
source?
not that I don't believe it though

>>7040881
Strange, I didn't feel that way at all... I was blown away. I didn't have any coherence/randomness problems. I'm actually sorry that you didn't like it.

>>7040870
>difficult about it?
The sentence parser smashing syntax. And yeah, no one really talks about the book in any meaningful way. It's mostly just complaining.

>>7040892
What book does have deep meaning? I feel like the point is to rearrange some things in your head.

>>7040964
>I was blown away. I didn't have any coherence/randomness problems. I'm actually sorry that you didn't like it.
really what did you like so much about it? just curious

>>7040974
That's really hard to answer. The insights: "She is like a woman who dresses only to be looked at and talked about by other women: their jealousy, whispered remarks, reluctant admiration are her own. They are she."

I thought Profane's ending w/the power outage was really beautiful. The test dummies were awesome. Africa and Malta were trippy, Mondaugen dancing w/Hedwig and running the wooden solar system machine was pretty sweet. V. in Valetta and her bellybutton jewel. Things like: "the dog began to scream at humid nightmare-shapes."

The yo-yoing/dance of death. Stencilization... Idk I really love it.

>>7040711

I think you're missing a few central themes to Pynchons work.

The main over-riding theme in all of Pynchons work is a form of paranoia, but a wider kind of paranoia. Think something like "the projection of meaning onto everything, regardless of whether or not it exists."

Pynchon I think diagnoses this as a central aspect of human nature and satirises it constantly in all of his works. The fun thing about Gravitys Rainbow is that it actually draws you into the same way of thinking. Every little vignette is GR has loads of interpretations there if you want to look for them. An example is the adenoid section within the first 100 pages. It can be read as a diplomats guilt about his role in the start of world war 1, combined with his fear of an effect on the generation below him, or even a more general subconscious fear of the changes in the modern world with a vague boogeyman history as the cause. It can also be interpereted as just a trippy dream.

If you apply this kind of thinking to everything in the book there is something to everything, and it can all be tied together into some over-arching theme if you try, which I think is the point. That meaning may be there (Pynchon certainly intended people to be ABLE to find it), but we will never know and still try to piece it together.

This is expressed wonderfully in the book through the medium of the rocket. In particular Enzian and Bliceros alternate interpretations of what is essentially just a lump of metal. Enzian views it as hope, an escape from the fate of his people in the stars, while to Blicero the launching is a sado-masochistic death ritual, linked to his occultistic beliefs.

I have to go now, I'll be back in a couple hours and if people are still around I'd be up for discussing the sex/death duality theme present in the rocket.

>>7041119 here

Actually, I wasn't talking to the OP, but to the people who said that Pynchons work is inherently meaningless and is nothing but hodgepodge surrealism. It's packed full of social commentary if you look.

>>7040711
I bought this book because I saw that it was popular on /lit/; I should have known better. I'm not a reader (recently I have been trying to read at least something... Nothing but the internet and movies definitely don't do any good for anyone). That said, I am obviously not acquainted with 'postmodern' prose, and after reading this, I don't know whether to be disappointed with myself, or the book. The sentences run on to a point where it's not even possible to get the message, by reading slowly, or reading straight through. If I read slowly, I forget what a sentence is saying; if I read quickly, I may get the gist of what it's about ('oh, right now we're reading a list of things cluttering Slothrop's desk, oh now it's a list of the women he's been with') but I won't capture 100% because it runs on and on. Then there's the way many phrases are constructed, which is unlike anything I have seen before and extremely difficult to decipher (if I can decipher anything at all). The way that cultural references are thrown in that I am unfamiliar with just makes it more confusing, because it makes me wonder if I might understand some of the sequences given a context (when Pirate recalls the bum saying 'your sound will be the sizzling night' like he heard in his dream; what does that phrase mean? Does it have any meaning?).

In short, I don't know what to do. The idea of the book intrigues me but I don't know if I am just too stupid to read and appreciate it. If Pynchon wrote this, surely he could memorize some of these sentences he was writing? I can't seem to. Or am I not supposed to? I googled it and some people were saying it's less about the actual statements, and more about the atmosphere being conveyed by the words. However, it might just be someone's excuse for not understanding it.

So what's the verdict? Did I get rused into buying a meme book, or can I get some value out of reading this if I press on?

>>7041119
ayyy im the guy you're responding to. see, i wouldnt mind the meme-trinityposting if more posts were like this

>>7041148
>>7041119
thanks guys this is the first time I've ever seen good commentary on Pynchon on /lit/ that isn't meme tier

>>7041119
>over-arching theme
holy shit
the rocket

>>7041148
>The idea of the book intrigues me but I don't know if I am just too stupid to read and appreciate it.
>some people were saying it's less about the actual statements, and more about the atmosphere being conveyed by the words. However, it might just be someone's excuse for not understanding it.

OP here. This is indeed what I felt. Even if you read a sentence 3 times, it's hard to make sense of that one sentence. Then you go on to the next sentence which seems to correlate in no way to the last one. And then you repeat that for 900 pages and it stops being fun if you're struggling to process any of it. Some scenes were funny as slapstick comedy but I felt like there was a lot more stuff in there and I just wasn't getting it. (Also I noticed as someone who speaks German and Dutch some references might completely fly over your head if you don't know those languages) Maybe I'm just not a good enough reader to get it or maybe I will never like it. At least at the moment this wasn't the right book for me. Might try again in some years.

For me it felt like some inverse Kafka. Many people tell me they just don't get Kafka, or fail to see the point where I absolutely love his every work. In Kafka's books there's this general concept of an unlucky individual being thrown around, confused and bullied by this unreachable unavailable power, like for example a bureaucracy but also his own father or the executing machine.

>>7041149
What is the meme-trinity?

I assume Gravity and Jest, what else?

>>7041206
Ulysses

>>7041206
Infinite Jest

>>7041221
>>7041226
In other words, the joke is that people promote extremely dense and complicated literary works on 4chan, knowing that most regular people won't be able to read them? Somehow I doubt this site of all would be the one to attract readers who can understand these works, let alone appreciate them. I am not saying it's impossible, but the representation is clearly inflated by memers. I mean, GR has been out for decades and I haven't heard of anyone talking about it that I know IRL.

>>7041248
i got into reading in high school and ulysses and gravity's rainbow and to a lesser extent IJ were the big archetypal "complicated books for grown-ups with ~*deep*~ themes and poetic language" that everyone flocked to even back then.

they're obviously not bad books by any stretch it's just lol some guy who uninstalled WoW less than 24 hrs ago trying to dive into the deep end because he wants to be a cool writer guy now

>>7041119

Good post. I've only read V, Lot 49, and GR, but I loved all of them. They each have a great atmosphere and they really suck you into their world.

>>7040711
This is gonna sound like a dick thing to say but I'm going to justify it: Gravity's Rainbow is not written for people who have to slog through it. What I mean by that is that the vast pages of seeming shaggy-dog stories and detailed descriptions are meant to form an overarching sense of the time and place as Slothrop perceives it. If you have to quit in the middle of a chapter, or stress out about not remembering each of these stories, you're not going to get it. The key to reading Gravity's Rainbow and any of Pynchon's longer novels is to be good at remembering names. Seriously, if you tend to leak names, then you're going to be totally confused halfway through anything but Lot 49 and Inherent Vice. Given its length and complex but fast-paced action, GR requires a quick reading speed and excellent comprehension and retention to enjoy to its fullest. ON the other hand, the book IS written in English so if you want to give it a couple of difficult readings feel free.

For those asking what it's about, to me Gravity's Rainbow was an angry book written by someone who had seen too much of the military-industrial complex in its infant stages and wanted to unmask the respectable citizens behind it as monsters, Scooby-Doo style.

>>7041119
smdh fam: parrot tier insight

The mark of Cain, here, is connecting Pynchon's work to paranoia. Cultivate, people! Think of what you are missing!

>>7041289
I don't want to be a 'cool writer guy'. I was never good at creative writing, to put it mildly, and I am too old anyway (24) to cultivate that kind of interest. Especially not being well read. No, I decided it give the book a try strictly because I assumed from the praises it receives that the book was very good, and an important cultural work. Now, while those things may ne true, the layman is not accustomed to being met with something like Pynchon's writing when he hears that a book is 'great'. Now, we all had to read the 'classics' in secondary school, and university lit courses no doubt also include important works. However, the style in which Pynchon's books seem to be written (postmodernism in general?) are noticeably incongruous with anything most people- save for those who take a specific interest to this sort of thing- would expect.

>>7041392

What does parrot tier even mean?

>>7041422
Probably means your interpretation is not original.

>>7041398
I actually wasn't referring to you. It seems like you gave it an honest try and had something to say about it. No memes, no bullshit.

>>7041427

It's not, it's a super superficial reading I admit. I just wanted to stress that there is something there and it's not just a surreal hodgepodge.

>>7041464
Good point. Reading NotPynchon's posts made me take Pincone more seriously. It's more fun that way anyway.

I genuinely love the book. Gearing up for a third reading soon. Giving up on page 400 is kind of ludicrous though.

The story of Franz Polker is one of the book's highlights for sure.

I will admit though, Part 3 drags more than the others. I never find it unbearable though.

I actually can't wait to get back into reading it.

I think one thing it's good to keep in mind is this book is really a Vietnam book set in WW2.

>>7041572

Yeah, I agree. When I read Gravity's Rainbow I tried my best to dissect every little thing, and that's why I enjoyed it. It meant I effectively read it at a rate of 1 chapter a day (2 days for the long ass chapters) and I spent more time thinking about the book than actually reading it. I couldn't get it out of my head at the time, but I had an insane amount of fun with it regardless.

I had a similar experience with Mason and Dixon, but it wasn't quite on the same level. There's a huge amount of thematic overlap between the two and I couldn't help but compare while reading.

>>7041632
Agreed on Poklers chapter, it was one of the most human parts of the book. I think it's because he spent so long on the one character instead of the constant jumping between perspectives. You get to know Pokler a lot better than anyone aside from say Slothrop or maybe Tchitcherine and Enzian.

>>7040947
>On the writing of Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon reportedly told Siegel, "I was so fucked up while I was writing it . . . that now I go back over some of those sequences and I can't figure out what I could have meant."

http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/bio/influences.html

>>7041248
Part of the meme appeal is that reading Infinite Jest -> Gravity's Rainbow -> Ulysses in that order yields corresponding exposure to modernism -> post-modernism -> post-post-modernism

i realized the main plot could be broken down into multiple separate plots or overarching conspiracies ... what do you guys think of this

1. pointsman's suspicion of slothrop having a precognitive penis, sending people after him
2. IG Farben having surveillance on slothrop because of his early life role as a test subject
3. one of the old british guys (sir marcus scummery?) putting slothrop onto the trail of the rocket so he will inadvertently find the schwarzkommando for them
4. schwarzkommando's building and launching of 00001
5. blicero's launching of 00000

>>7041732

They tie together. Later on if you'll recall Pointsman begins to get involved with the IG Farben people (or does he?) and the British guy having something to do with the IG Farben people as well (or does he?)

I found it strange that the Schwarzkommando and Bliceros rocket launches ended up being so seperate from Slothrop.
It seems to be a running theme of the book as well that you never get close to the meaning you're looking for, and if you do it'll go right over your head. You see this in Slothrop, who never finds the 00000, Tchitcherine, who doesn't notice Enzian, and fails to appreciate the Khirghiz light, Pokler never gets hit by the rocket and will never know whether or not the girl was his daughter or not.
I might give this angle a bit more thought and see how it ties in.

>>7041732
there's a huge gap between 4 and 5 there though

and IG Farben didn't have surveillance on him because of him being a test subject, but because his dad sold him out or something (he finds out in the mountain rocket facility I think)

>>7041776
No I definitely agree. I think it's what causes the breakdown in the final chapter. And if you want to shoehorn another example in

MB DRO
IROS

>>7041785
uhh, his dad sold him into being a test subject though. they didn't buy him to survey for no reaosn.

what do you mean about a huge gap though?

>>7041776
can you briefly summarize the khirgiz light part to me? that whole section was a blur, I found it really hard to read

>>7041789

I always thought the breakdown was more to do with the control aspect of the book. At the time what I felt Pynchon was trying to say was that we're constantly in a net of control through culture and government (which is a bad way of putting it) and that escaping it, as Slothrop did in the zone (an area with no control or survaillance) identity becomes less tangible. Slothrop adapts many identities through the end portion of the book. He is a person who has always been followed watched and controlled. Without it his identity falls apart.

That was my interpretation at the time but now that I'm giving your idea some thought I see that it ties in as well. Every character seems to react differently to the disappointment. Perhaps the commentary to be found here is in what makes Slothrop different from the rest?

>>7041803

That section was confusing as fuck, but basically Tchitcherine is sent into Khirghizstan to teach Russian and impose Russian culture.
I remember thinking at the time there was definitely some commentary on American imperialism to be found here but I don't have a great recollection.

Anyway he hears about this Khirghiz light, a great light that people travel from miles around to see and men who see it emerge changed. Tchitcherine goes to see it (with a Khirghiz guide-guy who I think is an allusion to Sancho Panza.) Tchitcherine sees the light but fails to appreciate it, he doesn't see the magic and doesn't understand. This is effectively the same thing that happens when he finally encounters Enzian at the end. He sees what he has been questing for, but he does not realise it or its significance. How this ties into the big picture I do not know.

>>7041842
right okay, now I remember
yeah, the meeting with Tchitcherine, first time I read it just felt disappointing

But having a year to reflect on the book before reading again, even the shaggy dog endings like that felt powerful

op you should read books written in the 19th century and progress to lighter modernist and postmodernist works before you attempt gravitys rainbow again. pynchons plots may appear byzantine and random but nearly every element of his writing is purposeful and can be interpreted in several ways. develop an ability to discern the structure of a book and take notes.

there is a reason why pynchon is so esteemed. there is a reason why pynchon was able to publish a "detective" novel set in 1970 despite all the unpublished apparently similar manuscripts written by people who lived in that time and think they have something to say of that era.

actually inherent vice is worth a read for you at this point as it is pynchon lite, as they say. just read with your antennas up.

good luck

>>7041728
You got it mixed up.

>>7041796
oh right

what I mean is I remember a lot of other stuff happening between your points 4 and 5

>>7041148
>>7041198

How has it not occurred to you (at least the first guy) that's it's in no way a book meant for a beginner reader? You didn't get anything from it because you need to start with the Greeks.

I'm kidding. You need to start with easier works of literature for a couple years, get your gym badges, and then read a book intended for academics and book nerds. This should be obvious. Also it is about the atmosphere conveyed. It's supposed to be a mind-bending challenge where your become wrapped up in the opalescent smog of prose, like a meandering dream. SOC writing is generally trying to convey this. But you first need to read the surrealists to understand what's happening

>>7041248
>Somehow I doubt this site of all would be the one to attract readers who can understand these works,

Good fucking lord, did you just get off the boat, what happened to lurk more?
This board is filled with academics and big time readers, this isn't /b/. So yes, people here can and do enjoy and understand the intellectual wankery posted

>>7041896
between? I didn't imply any summary or linearity or progression, the five are happening mostly simultaneously, which creates for slothrop's (and the readers) confusion when assuming everything's stemming from one singular plot

i think the lumping of plots together fits the confirmation bias theme like when pointsman sees slothrop's sex coinciding with the rockets

the list is my attempt at taking the novels overarching main plots and putting them to some kind of simple logic

or are you saying there was something main that I missed?

>>7041398
Not all postmodern writers are like Pynchon. Give "White Noise" by Don Delillo a go.

>>7041248
/lit/ is probably the best internet community for literary discussion I've come across. It is regrettably a part of 4chan so we get a lot of cross-board idiots, but it's generally a group of educated and passionate people, and I enjoy mind the casual, self deprecating, and often ironical tone of discussion. I feel like anywhere else serious literature is discussed you encounter too large a degree of self importance.

>>7042126
Are you being postmodern or post-postmodern?

>>7042182

To be fair it actually is. /lit/ pretty much exclusively discusses classics (which is a positive or a negative depending on how you view it) and tends to be quite knowledgeable at least about them.

If you removed the memers and the shitposters this place would be great.

>>7042910

Agreed, but it would be, like, ten people who actually have lives outside of this place, and its slow pace might drive even them away.

>>7042910
I like the shitposters
Memes are a pretty hollow prefab substitutes for actual humor, but the plain jane shitposters are a nice contrast to the academic discussion. Very Pynchonian. High brow and low-like yeah?

>>7042910
I like the shitposters
Memes are a pretty shallow prefab substitute for actual humor, but the plain jane shitposters are a nice contrast to the academic discussion. Very Pynchonian. High brow and low-like yeah?

I thought it was a great book, with some challenging-but-rewarding sections. I found it fascinating and I have missed its style and prose in books that I've read since.

>>7040721
I liked all the naughty stuff too

>>7042932

I can dig that. Like the literary banter shit is good and I like it, it's what seperates this place from everywhere else, it's not serious.

What digs me are the people who talk shit that's not even funny or enjoyable. For example the people who constantly talk shit about how the "meme trilogy" are terrible and just memes to people who ask sincere questions about them. I know the threads are spammed, but jesus, you're not going to improve the situation that way.

>>7042910
no
memeposters shitposts provide necessary friction against which non memeposters posts gain traction
its like youve not even read witty

>>7042973
not him but I haven't where do i start?

>>7042973

Ironically I am him also and would like Wittengstein recommendations. Where would I start?

>>7040711
I had to force myself through the latter half of the book honestly.
I'm glad I did, but it would have just been the same if I read some bullet points on what happens tbh

Holy fuck, Weir legitimately should not be permitted to write dialogue ever again. He was bad enough with the main character just talking to himself, but HOT DAMN.

>>7043317
thought the same thing, shit was laughable

>>7043317
uhhhhh

who?