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/lit/ - Literature

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18024509 No.18024509 [Reply] [Original]

I've read Gravity's Rainbow, V., and pic related.

Is it worth reading more? It seems like he's being deliberately opaque most of the time and when you drill down there's not actual substance.

Plus he is constantly trying to present scat and pedophilia as normal, human condition stuff. It makes me cringe.

Why is this guy so highly regarded?

>> No.18024550

>>18024509
>Is it worth reading more? It seems like he's being deliberately opaque most of the time and when you drill down there's not actual substance.

If you’ve read V, GR and Lot 49 and this is the opinion you have coming away from them, then no. It’s not worth it for you to read more of him. I’d’ve thought the previous 1000+ pages of opaque paedo scat would have suggested this.

>> No.18024559

>Why is this guy so highly regarded?

Us Americans trying desperately to prop up decent writers as better than they really are to feel smart and better about ourselves Also because his books are complex and complicated which people pretend is good to feel smart and better about themselves

>> No.18024606 [DELETED] 

>>18024509
His comedy is cringe and all of his works are style over substance and his style isn't very good. He's highly regarded because it makes people feel smart to say they "get" his intentionally obtuse prose

>> No.18024638

Mason and Dixon is definitely the best one: a lot less scatalogical and it actually shows off his talent for syntax and his general perspicacity.

>> No.18024695

>>18024509
>scat and pedophilia as normal, human condition stuff
either you are poltard or you don't know nothing about history of human civilization.
>>18024638
M&D is mediocre at best.

>> No.18024751

>>18024559
I unironically think this is the case. He's often compared to Joyce but he's like a crappy off-brand.

>>18024638
I'll give it a shot. Can't be worse than fuckin' V.

>> No.18024871

>>18024509
>scat and pedophilia as normal, human condition stuff.

I mean it is part of our base, animal sides. Acknowledging that that part of us exists isn't condoning it.

>> No.18024910

>>18024695
>>18024871
There's a fundamental difference between acknowledging this stuff and glorifying it. I think it's safe to say that Pynchon doesn't see this difference.

>> No.18024921

>>18024910
>I think it's safe to say that Pynchon doesn't see this difference.
i don't think that's safe to say at all

>> No.18024926

>>18024638
The thing that makes M&D great is the warmth and soul it has. His other novels tend to be bleak, paranoia fests

>> No.18024974
File: 76 KB, 1200x1200, 1612022092815.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18024974

>>18024509
>/pol/yp uses entertainment for moral edification episode

>> No.18025007

>>18024509
>Plus he is constantly trying to present scat and pedophilia as normal, human condition stuff.
He really isn't. Col. Pudding, Blicero, the degenerates on the Anubis, etc. aren't supposed to be good people. Despite all the shock value scenes and gross-out humor in his early books, Pynchon is a moralist hippie at heart.

>> No.18025032

>>18025007
>moralist hippie
these words do not follow each other

>> No.18025059

>>18025032
only if you presume moralism = traditionalism
if you think free love actually benefits mankind than hippies are entirely moral

>> No.18025067

>>18024509
I’ve only read Vineland and it kinda sucked desu. I still want to read Inherent Vice because the movie was good.

>> No.18025116
File: 56 KB, 243x335, pynched.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18025116

>>18024509
>Plus he is constantly trying to present scat and pedophilia as normal, human condition stuff. It makes me cringe.
How did you miss Pynchon's condemnation of these things? He pretty explicitly ties them to modernistic ideas of progress, and is very against things that only relate to death. Esther's nose job, V2 rockets, eating shit, becoming a robot, are all things he seems to not like.

>> No.18026576

>>18025067
I read Inherent Vice and enjoyed it, mostly because I always get totally lost when I'm reading noir and I think that helped me get into the right mindset.

>> No.18026606

>>18025032
how

>> No.18026608

I'll be honest - you're a complete idiot.
But there is hope for you - maybe come back to him when you learn how to read. There is plenty substance to pynchon's books but lot 49 sucks and pynchon himself wrote it off as a potboiler and failure.
Especially GR and V. Did the will for humanity's destruction just go over your head? Does the sadomasochism practiced by people dominated by war have just nothing to do with it apart from "pynchon wants me to think this is normal"? Think about why they do it. Do you even know who V is and what her progression through the book towards inanimate means? Why she shows up in civil conflict and fascist contexts?

>> No.18026683

>>18025032
???
what is an anti-war protest but an expression of moral condemnation?

>> No.18026694

>>18026683
Dont worry, its a troll. This opinion is so stupid that a- nobody reasonable can think this, and b- should some idiot think this it isnt worth debating

>> No.18026698

>>18024509
Pynchon's genre is menippean satire retard.

>> No.18026703

>>18024509
>when you drill down there's not actual substance
oh good another driller for substance. i swear to god if you disregard every single person that ever discussed art in these midwit spatial metaphors like "depth" and "surface" and "layers" no insight is lost at all. i drilled so hard, you see, but there just wasn't substance!

>> No.18026802

There is physically no way you slogged through ~1500 pages with no takeaway besides "this guy sure loves scat and pedophilia". This has to be bait

>> No.18026815

>>18026802
you seriously underestimate a brainlet's ability to consume without reflection.

>> No.18026846

I've only read Crying of Lot 49 and didn't like it. It felt like a poor man's Pale Fire. Is Gravity's Rainbow with checking out?

>> No.18026895

>>18026846
Gravity's rainbow is much better in every way. Particularly it feels more fleshed out as a book, CoL49 feels like he meant to write a short story and just kept going. That being said, if you hated Pynchon's humor, you might not enjoy it

>> No.18027852

>>18026846
tcol is just a very rough draft of GR. If you like Nabokov you'll probably like pynchie or find his prose absolute dreck, but it's a process you see

>> No.18027889

>>18027852
>has never read any pynchon
TcoL iS juSs a VreY RouGh dRaFt oF gR

>> No.18027894

>>18027889
Are you having a stroke?

>> No.18027912

>>18027894
YeS.

>> No.18027936

>>18027894
Begone newfag

>> No.18027973

>>18026608
>lot 49 sucks and pynchon himself wrote it off as a potboiler and failure.
!!!PSEUD ALERT!!!!PSEUD ALERT!!!

>> No.18028024

>>18027936
>twitterfag calling anyone else a newfag
lol did you get a post horn tattoo?

>> No.18028113

>>18026703
Laughed my ass off at that last sentence. Great style you have, and Pynchon would approve.

>> No.18028408

>>18024509
I listened to a pirated audiobook of inherent vice at work one day. It was formatted improperly that the middle 8 hours of the book were put at the end. Because of that I got to the ending of the book missing 8 hours of it. So little happens in the book I didn’t notice a large chunk of it was missing. I like his writing style though

>> No.18028517

>>18024509
>Why is this guy so highly regarded
Connections in the new york /lit/ scene (especially Bloom) and he is good.

>> No.18028536

>>18025032
His morals are not exactly old school but turning to any page in any one of his books and reading a longer passage will tell you that he doesn't do away with morals.

>> No.18028568

>>18027852
>If you like Nabokov you'll probably like pynchie
Probably not. Apart from favoring actuality over reality and subordinate clauses, they aren't much alike. Pynchon's expository philosophizing will turn away the Nabokov reader.

>> No.18029343

I've read GR and tcol, and I loved both. Currently reading V. and it's okay, worth reading to see how his style developed.
I've found Bleeding Edge in a used bookshop yesterday, and bought it since it was 3 bucks. What am I in for? I don't know much about it, it only seems to me like people didn't really like it

>> No.18029361

>>18028408
>So little happens in the book I didn’t notice a large chunk of it was missing. I like his writing style though

I don't think you were trying to summarize Pynchon's work but I think you inadvertently did.

One could unironically compare the information density of Pynchon and Dickens. So much fucking fluff.

>> No.18029389

>>18029361
To be fair, the stories themselves are so varied and incoherent (at least from a traditional story telling POV) that getting from point A to point B in a Pynchon novel is the literary equivalent of plotting course through a blackhole.
There's no traditional manner for plotting the path that it takes, because it folds space over itself so many times over.

>> No.18029410

>>18027973
Your literally calling pynchon a pseud, read the introduction to slow learner. Lot 49 has alot of meat to chew over but its an absolutely terrible read, lets not kid ourselves. Give me inherent vice, vineland, v, basically any other pynchon (havent read bleeding edge) over crying of lot 49

>> No.18029458

Anyone here watching John David Ebert's lectures on Gravity's Rainbow? I find them very interesting.

>> No.18029460

>>18029389
> There's no traditional manner for plotting the path that it takes, because it folds space over itself so many times over.

I think it would be more precise to say that it *changes* space many times over. Pynchon loves to make complete context changes frequently (often nesting them). There's nothing fundamentally wrong with this, but using it extensively can come across as a crutch.

>> No.18029519

>>18029460
Interesting perspective, but personally I would say that otherworldly aspect is part of what defines Pynchon, and not in a bad way. I think that aspect, when combined with his ramble-jamble grammar & word usage, is what makes his work so psychedelic.
You're constantly being thrust in situations where so much has changed, you're constantly trying to to reevaluate your "surroundings," so to speak.
The style rarely lets the reader rest on the laurels of familiarity and instead keeps them wide-eyed and attentively overwhelmed with the sheer scope of the sensory information being provided.

>> No.18029576

>>18029519
I completely agree with your take on how his style steers the reader... but I don't necessarily see this as a universal positive. Examples below are from GR for consistency.

There are places where this performs brilliantly (e.g. Slothrop reckoning (or perhaps refusing to reckon) with his mortality) and places where it frankly sucks (e.g. light bulb horseshit). I think Pynchon leans way too hard on this tool and it is a weakness in his work. It's pretty common to unravel a series of these context switches and find that the subject matter is- all obfuscation removed- pretty mundane.

>> No.18029603

>>18029576
While I agree that there are moments in his works where this happens, probably a good 20 pages worth of Gravity's Rainbow I could do without.
But, I don't have this problem so much as in say, Inherent Vice, which is also much shorter.

To be honest, I don't know that I've read any book as long as GR is and not disliked just AS much as in it, if not more so.
I'm not saying a book that lengthy doesn't exist somewhere out there, where I would love everything in it, but I have yet to find it.

So for me, these aren't really a big issue, and the greatness of the good parts outweighs them heavily.
I could honestly apply this to works of art in any comparable medium, that exist over a set amount of time (Movie, Album, etc). Generally the longer it is, the more middling moments there are sure to be, even in otherwise great works.

Some of my favorite albums of all time, I don't love every single second of (passage in a book, scene in a movie, etc).