/lit/ - Literature

>>9135075
Please learn to greentext newfag. Also, Mason and Dixon is better

>>9135090
>Please learn to greentext newfag.
I've been here for 5 years, I know how to put a fucking carat before certain lines, I'm just not autistic.

I'm willing to discuss the merits of the book against each other, I even put GR was better "IMO" (in my opinion, in case you don't know, newfag) i'm just making this thread because I'm a petty person and couldn't handle not responding back to the butthurt untermensch.

>>9135093
>carat
by which i mean greater-than sign

You are unironically the most autistic person on this board. And that's not so bad, but don't kid yourself about it.

>>9135101
I totally concede to this, but the guy who responded with 20 lines of shit I didn't even read to a few quickly written lines of mine has to be at LEAST a close second. More like a one-and-a-half tee bee aitch

>>9135075
I mean if anyone wants to redeem my admittedly shitty thread it could become a Pynchon general/discussing the merits of M&D vs. GR.

I personally like GR better because the plot is more ambitious, formally experimental, and successful, whereas M&D is something where you can genuinely say it doesn't have a plot. People say GR doesn't have a recognizable plot, but that's just because they're too stupid, have a bad memory, and don't see that it's really about 10 subplots working together at the same time. M&D on the other hand is more plotless because it has to adhere more strictly to a preset form --- that of the actual lives of Mason and Dixon; thus Pynchon didn't have as much room to experiment with the plot.

Again, I love M&D and think it's a great novel, one the best of the 20th century, but GR is even better. Anyone can come at me if they wish, but I may not respond.

>>9135075
I'd forgive the autism if you didn't have shit taste, but you do. Gravity's Rainbow is the more immature book on every level.

>>9135128
Can you explain? Thanks.

>>9135093
>5 years
newfag pls leave, you're a fucking cancer

>>9135145
nah i'm good, hbu?

>>9135123
Interesting take on the plot thing, overall I agree that M&D does adhere to the preset of actual history where GR's plot is more ambitious or "creative" for lack of a better word, although I would say that the fact that M&D adheres to history while simultaneously taking huge liberties with it is essential to it's overall themes, perhaps more so than the plot in GR.

Personally I lean towards M&D because it seems like its written by someone that's a lot more confident and mature in their writing abilities than GR, which is incredible but seems to me like Pynchon felt he had a lot to prove. GR is due for a rereading by me though so my opinion might still change.

>>9135128
The immaturity is definitely part of Pynchon's charm though

>>9135075
How is saying he peaked early not disrespectful and flippantly dismissive of his work that followed it?

And take a joke man, I was just messing around. Do you think I actually care about hurting your feelings or not, or how accurate I was to reality? I saw an opportunity for humor which I never second guess and work on my creativity chops so I took the chance.

Your posts were anonymous. You really didnt read all I wrote... and you were still that bothered? Interesting that me, being so baselessly wrong could strike such a nerve.

GR maybe be 1000 times better than M and D and all his later works, but that still doesnt mean anything really, about M and D as the text it is itself....well yeah... I know it does... trying to objectively compare.... but... its apples and oranges.... Is M and D 5, 100, 1000 times worse? How many people planning to read Pynchon should skip it entirely? Or they should just know/learn from themselves after reading it, that it was x quantites worse than GR, and that it is a shame *looking at you when I say that Tommy * you had all that time, wrote all those books, all those pages and yet, you couldnt even write a better book than GR, fucking disgrace

And that anon was telling me to learn to greentext I presume, for not in the heat of my creative moment taking the time to start a new line, or reformatting it after.

I was also slightly hoping/fearing you are not that anon, but just a fan who wanted to advertise this display of debasement

>>9135075
How is saying he peaked early not disrespectful and flippantly dismissive of his work that followed it?

A pretty early peak, sadly. Something about the ungratefulness I suppose got me, would have let the rest slide, but some shiesty parts built up and than that last snooty snide remark. Like as if you could look him in the face and give him a motherly look of disappointment. But I guess this is just something I need to get used to, children on the internet deriding content creators they 'admire' and 'respect'. Like ''unironic" game of thrones fans cursing their beloved for not roboting out his divine art fast enough.

And take a joke man, I was just messing around. Do you think I actually care about hurting your feelings or not, or how accurate I was to reality? I saw an opportunity for humor which I never second guess and work on my creativity chops so I took the chance.

Your posts were anonymous. You really didnt read all I wrote... and you were still that bothered? Interesting that me, being so baselessly wrong could strike such a nerve.

GR maybe be 1000 times better than M and D and all his later works, but that still doesnt mean anything really, about M and D as the text it is itself....well yeah... I know it does... trying to objectively compare.... but... its apples and oranges.... Is M and D 5, 100, 1000 times worse? How many people planning to read Pynchon should skip it entirely? Or they should just know/learn from themselves after reading it, that it was x quantites worse than GR, and that it is a shame *looking at you when I say that Tommy * you had all that time, wrote all those books, all those pages and yet, you couldnt even write a better book than GR, fucking disgrace

And that anon was telling me to learn to greentext I presume, for not in the heat of my creative moment taking the time to start a new line, or reformatting it after.

>>9135075
You're going to get rekt for this.

>>9135473
I haven't read all this either, why am I so good at getting people butthurt? Do you really think I'm going to read this much shit about how much of an asshole I am?

>>9137104
>why am I so good at getting people butthurt?
Must always have to do with something wrong and bad about them.

>I haven't read all this either,

Well, looks like its about time to start another thread about it then right?

Strange to read all this. Gravity's Rainbow reflects its time- the pace, the fear and excitement, the mad hope and loathing- by reflecting UPON what it conceives to be the foundation of ITS birth 30 years before, in parceled out Berlin, i.e. at the beginning of the mad scramble for most everyone (character, government) TO GET while the getting is good. -And, all complaining to the contrary, the getting still seems good, but only because we are unable to acknowledge any other way. We don't know how.- The book, therefore, is still with us-- what happened in pop music about 30 years ago happened in lit about 40 years ago: though it kept on going it stopped. Or rather it didn't change. And it didn't change because it didn't have time to change the 'telecommunications revolution' notwithstanding. I mean, who has time for this, that, the other, reading books, what have you? At any rate, Mason and Dixon is also an exceptionally funny comic novel about (not an 'origin' but) a foundation. It scrolls back through silent films, vaudeville, Whitman, to a foundation every bit as telling (about modern times) as Berlin 1945 (and London early 1940's) yet not near as vital because far less conscious. The pace is slower, the prose more accessible, the humor less cerebral, more physical. It is, ultimately, a comic's apt impression of a historical novel, yet somehow more. ..Some kid began a thread about 'friendship' in lit yesterday, and it never even remotely crossed my mind to make Mason and Dixon a recommendation. And yet Mason and Dixon is also a novel of a friendship unacknowledged, until late in life, by the surviving 'main character.' Hey, that guy was my friend. --As with so much else in life understanding comes late, or not at all. My favorite of his, Pynchon's, is V.

>>9137905
ok

>>9135093
>5 years
>GET OUT

>>9135473
>What if this is Old Pinecone?
>What if he's butthurt someone suggested he peaked early and decided to break his lurkmode?
>Is this proof he browses /lit/?

>>9135093
>Saying how long you've been on 4chan for
Truly the mark of a newfag. You can say you've come the week it was founded and people will call you a newfag, newfag.
>>9137387
Shit spacing my dude.

>>9135093
>being this new

>>9137905
I like this post

I don't know- I connected more with GR as a whole than I did with M&D. Whether that says more about me personally or the work, I'm not sure. They're both great works.

>>9138841
>Shit spacing my dude.
>Shit argument my fag

Fucking stop saying newfag.
That term makes you sound like a "newfag".

>>9135075
>Beethoven may as well stopped after the 5th symphony
The Grosse Fugue was Beethoven's best work.

So it is agreed that GR is better?

>>9139038
>The Grosse Fugue was Beethoven's best work

t. Cunt E. Trarian

Its pointless to say what you think or feel his best work is, or.. you mean, "I like this work best" (other people might not like it, but its just because my tastes are more complex and sophisticated and refined...that is why I am telling you this after all)

My answer would be, about 20 of his pieces are tied for Beethovens best work, and I am equally thankful to listen to 40s of his pieces. I am extremely fucking thankful that it is possible to listen to a single one of his 'worst works', it is a miracle anything survives history, it is a miracle anything exists

>>9139038
Also, muh late beethoven, I admire, appreciate, and have enjoyed the Grosse fugue, but (in terms of later works) his 16 string quartet beckons me to listen to it much more. And I know he was really proud of the Grosse, as there is that anecdote he was mad the audience (understandably) asked to hear an encore of his other works but not that one at its premiere.

I wonder if he consciously linked the punness of Grosse, and the grossness of that fugue.

It is one of his more/most 'free-wheelin', letting loss, approaching the sublime. There are supreme moments in it, but the sheer organization and orchestration of his other works, symphonies, I like his piano concertos, all though, obviously as he was much known for, are more rigidly structured, but are obvously supremely monumental, and epic. I like a lot of piano works, and string quartets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s0Mp7LFI-k


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnMGP1maBBk

The fuck is this thread

>>9140210
It's about Mason&Dixon vs. Gravity's Rainbow and me not wanting to let some asshole post go unresponded to even though it was already archived

>>9135090
>Also, Mason and Dixon is better

And Wings were the band the Beatles could have been.

>>9139826
It's more alive, 'vital,' fascinating, necessary. But, as a novel, better? Moot. Clearly- Some really do prefer the country to the city, and that's okay. What you really objected to was the manner a certain fellow employed by way of response. M&D is too good a novel not to be this or that yokel's favorite. You're right, in other words, but fight a battle youre bound to lose. Life's unfair that way.. instanced in about a gazillion novels.

>>9141741
Maybe instead of being a total autistic bitch, you could try learning to let things go once in a while. You must not have many friends, otherwise you wouldn't throw such a solipsistic tantrum over the fact that someone expressed an opinion contradictory to your own. It happens all the time in the real world, and often the people that disagree are smug little shits about it. It's not the end of the world

>>9143602
tl;dr

You seem upset and/or projecting btw

>>9143624
I know reading is hard, so I won't sweat that you couldn't get through 2 lines. Here's the tl;dr:

I don't like people that act like 3 year-olds who can't handle someone disagreeing with them

>>9143649
>>9143649
OK, guess I'll shoot myself now bc someone on the internet doesn't like me

I just didn't want to leave a conversation unfinished pal, even an Internet conversation. Not only that, but I'm fostering conversation about good books. Why don't you weigh in on the conversation?

>>9143673
You're only 'fostering conversation about good books' to hedge your bets and give the thread a pretend legitimacy when everyone knows it's really just about your petty little grudge against some anonymous faggot. At least be honest.

fwiw I preferred Mason & Dixon, but mostly because I prefer American frontier history to 20th century American history

>>9143691
K.

I feel Mason & Dixon works better as a novel, because it's less over-the-place and has an actual coherent ending, whereas Gravity's Rainbow just flies apart and leaves you with a lot of questions; however, GR is much richer in prose and ideas, traversing a far wider range IMO. I love them both, but think GR does deserve to be the most famous of his works, as it is. There's so much more content and depth in it, even if its opacity can baffle and frustrate readers and not be as neat and tidy as M&D (which again, I still think is a masterpiece and I wouldn't want to eradicate for anything).

>>9142005
you're not wrong

>>9143711
I don't claim to know which novel is better, only which novel appeals more to my sensibilities as a reader

>>9143731
ok

Despite what some pretty pretentious people on this board might say, I ultimately think de gustibus non est disputandum and taste in literature as we know it is pretty much subjective. It's my opinion that GR is the richer book, even though finishing M&D left me feeling more satisfied when I finished GR. I'm just saying, that if I had to preserve one of them for future generations, GR would be saved.

>>9143734
>I would choose to save the book that I was less satisfied with

great opinion.

>>9143721
Back of the net!

>>9143748
There comes a time in every man's life when he must repress his base enjoyments and realize that even if something is not satisfying it is truer and deeper

I think the fact that so many on /lit/ prefer M&D to GR is proof of their triteness. M&D is beautiful, well-written, but far shallower and more contained within the guidelines. It has an easier resolution, it's easier to be stomached. But GR is a book that really makes you think. It's a book that when you're done with it, you sit there, and you go, "Really made me think."

>>9135123
>>9135178
>says he wants to discuss Pynchon
>doesn't reply to post that attempts to open up a dialogue about Pynchon
>instead continues to antagonize and call other posters 'butthurt'
It's bait, guys.

>>9143780
I didn't want to respond because he seemed so polite. I'm embarrassed when people are polite to me. I could say to him though, that rereading GR is a great experience because you understand a lot more than on the last read, at least in my experience, where I've read it twice and (after a necessary break of perhaps several decades) even want to read it again, but not before said break.

M&D IS more polished, but I like GR precisely because it is so unpolished and fiery, and traverses a wider range of prose style and ideas. I also think the prose in GR is better than in M&D, or at least there are more times in GR where the style shoots off into the stratosphere than in M&D, although of course it's a close call because M&D is beautiful too. GR is just more exuberant in more places. If it had a stronger conclusion, it would've been 20x better than M&D.

>>9143775
>truer and deeper
those are some fancy fixed ideas you have there. You don't sound like someone who believes de gustibus non est disputandum at all, and in fact you seem quite preoccupied with superlatives that have no meaning

>>9143797
My taste liked M&D better because it's neater and more polished but a deeper part of me must give the crown to GR. M&D is not nearly so much a novel of ideas as GR is, I think GR is more likely to incite introspection in people than M&D is, and for that reason, I think I'd be justified in preserving GR.

>>9143806
Why are you so concerned with justifying yourself? It's obvious you liked GR more, and I don't agree with your reasoning. I also think it's quite stupid of you to insist on creating a hypothetical situation where you have to 'preserve' one or the other, the need to manufacture a strict hierarchy strikes me as very autistic. You've made it very clear why you prefer GR, you have your reasons and they don't persuade me. End of conversation

>>9143806
>more likely to incite introspection
To elaborate, I'm honestly a curmudgeon when it comes to books. I admit that they can be fun and pleasant to read, and even I read books for enjoyment of course, but I don't agree with Nabokov's totally aesthetic view. I think the best books are useful tools to sharpen your mind and develop your emotions. I value the book that changes you and makes you think more than the one that is beautifully written --- e.g., see John Updike, who undeniably has some of the most beautiful prose of all time but who many people are a bit uncertain of due to how shallow his books are. This view probably won't be appreciated much here, but it's my view.

GR deeply incorporates themes, motifs, and imagery of sadomasochism into its woof and web to deal with the question of why people wage war, why people are so cruel, why we seem to be destroying the environment and ourselves (the astonishingly complex and beautiful mirroring of Gerhardt von Goll/Greta with Pokler/Ilse and Slothrop/Bianca and Blicero/Gottfried, as well as Katje/Pudding in a more sensational way). It also more deeply delves into issues of determinism, randomness, and freewill, with the talk of Pavlovian conditioning and what happened to Slothrop as a child and how he seems to have been shaped by outside forces since childhood and still is throughout the book, with shadowy and unknown forces seeking after him, and Slothrop never to quite understand what he was being used for.

In M&D, these things show up too but more tritely, shallowly, just as brief mentions, because clearly Pynchon is still the same person and these issues can't have been entirely expunged from his mind, even over all the years between the book. The Black Hole of Calcutta, for instance, is a briefer and IMO shallower look at sadomasochism and man's psyche. Mason and Dixon perhaps being used by outside forces, the Jesuit/Chinese connection/conspiracy theory, are more comical and incidental to the story instead of being as central as they are in GR (as in, the ideas that people can be used and never know what they're being used for, as well as conspiracy theories in general). Determinism/mechanism vs freewill is also somewhat present in Vaucanson's Duck (which is an obvious reference to AI I think, the idea that we can create consciousness), but again, more tritely. M&D flows easier, more smoothly, is more easily digested, is in this sense maybe even more aesthetic, but completely unironically, I have to give GR the higher place because it makes you think more deeply. My ideal book would be equal parts beautiful and equal parts philosophical (again, beauty w/o philosophy is what leads to books like Updike's, infuriatingly lovely and shallow).

I dunno... they're wonderful books and I may even read M&D again, but I don't think I'll change my opinion on it to be honest.

>>9143794
I'm currently on a first read of GR. Well, technically a second read. About two years ago my actual first read ended halfway through the novel after I realized I wasn't mature enough to "get" it (which realization was prompted by a post I saw on here, go figure). I'm annotating (mostly to force myself to pay close attention). What else would you recommend I do to make sure I can keep all the ten subplots straight and just more generally keep myself from getting KO'd as I did on my first attempt?

>>9143905
IMO... you can't do it, unless you really really try. It's a book that in my experience was only reread. Rereading is amazing because you understand so much more. However, if you're annotating you're probably doing better than me, but even then you can't really get it perfectly a first time, or not even a second time. As I said, I want to read it again because there's still some things buzzing in my mind I don't get.

Also, it's not that hard. I mean, it's decently hard but it shouldn't be overrated either. If you pay attention and have good memory, everything makes sense, except The Counterforce (the ending) which is confusing as fuck in places.

>>9143905
>>9143927
this is just sad now...

>>9143980
sorry

>>9135075
M&D is totally better

>>9135123
wow

learn to read