/lit/ - Literature

No. You would be a brainlet if you believed any part of this book wasn't completely nonsensical trash.

>>9628414
Is Pynchon worth it at all?

>>9628434
Are you in a "useless trivia" league? Do you think the point of writing is to appear more clever than the reader?

If you answered yes to one or both of these questions, Pynchon is your guy.

>>9628414
What are you confused by?

>>9628457
Looking clever than the reader looks important. But i don't think is the point of it.

>>9628494
The whole or Chapter 3 with the 8 different characters. I'm assuming what happens there becomes important later, I just feel like I couldn't even follow that chapter. I am actually enjoying it now that its gotten back to Profane and The Whole Sick Crew. I read Crying of Lot 49 a while ago and really loved it although it took a second read to get into it. Would it be the same for V.?

>>9628434
TCoL49 and Gravity's Rainbow are two of the best books I've ever read. Pynchon's pretty great at this antithetic "systematization of chaos" we humans seem to be so obsessed with. If you're interested in beauty of prose and / or pareidolia / paranoia / entropy you will enjoy him.

>>9628538
Chapter 3 stumped me too the first time. The characters and what they say there are a little more important than the politics, so just remember that. If you read V. a second time over you'd certainly know what to pay attention to, but it isn't essential, and Pynchon will remind you of events in the novel to help you see the connections.

>>9628414
I was like that too, but don't overthink it and just enjoy it, almost everything will be made clear as you go

>>9628414
>>9628434
>>9628538
First off, yes, Pynchon is worth it. Most of the people complaining that Pynchon has trivial references or that he's just trying to seem clever have not bothered to read his works or are not capable of reading his works. If you're anything like I was, Pynchon is going to be a challenge. You need to go in expecting to be pushed to your limits and you need to be determined to put in effort and make progress every day. Just like many things in life the effort you put into it is proportional to what you get from it.

If I remember correctly, chapter 3 is was one of the most difficult in the book. In chapter 3 you are actually (as the title of the chapter implies) reading from Stencils perspective as he is playing out characters and scenarios in his mind using the evidence he has collected and some educated guesswork to piece together. From the wiki: "The title is a hint as to how this chapter is to be understood: Stencil imagines each of the eight viewpoints as he reconstructs — we do not know on how much knowledge and how much conjecture — this episode."

USE SECONDARY MATERIAL. The internet has plenty of great resources for reading Pynchon; try out the Pynchon wiki annotations or chapter summaries. Stick with it and I promise you wont regret it. You will feel a great sense of accomplishment when you finish.

>>9629804
honestly this

>>9628538
>Chapter Three: "In which Stencil, a quick-change artist does eight impersonations"

gee, i wonder what this chapter is about