/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2712436]

Guys, how do I enjoy Pynchon? The only thing I've finished was Lot 49 (it was OK), which is nothing like his later stuff.

Do I just plunge in? Do I keep reading until the book starts to make aesthetic sense? For now, reading Gravity's Rainbow is like reading in a language I only half-understand. Occasionally I get glimpse of something cool, but I think it's my imagination anyway.

Am I missing something? With music, I had to spend a few years alowly growing through all the ages starting with baroque polyphony without being able to appreciate the more modern forms until I naturally moved onto them. Is it this sort of thing? Am I not going to appreciate it without naturally learning to appreciate postmodernist literature (ie. getting too comfortable with older forms)? Or do I just give Pynchon a steady try and perhaps finish one of the doorstoppers?

[Anonymous No.2712450]

Well, GR should be the last of his books that you read, imo.

With Pynchon, you kind of just have to go with the flow. His prose is excellent, and he has an over-the-top way of storytelling that can seem silly at times, though it drives the work in directions few other authors went with as much gusto.

His work is often tangential and filled to the brim with obscure references, but that's part of the journey. It's thematically dense and at times seemingly all over the place, but that's just his style. If you think of the narrative in most of his works as being dreamlike in tone, it starts to make more sense and becomes more enjoyable, though it's often still a slog to get through. I personally think he's amazing and was brave enough to push the envelope a lot farther than many contemporary authors would.

The key is patience, I guess. It's worth it for the prose and the stories themselves. He was sort of the watershed post-modern author, his stuff is brilliant but it's hard to get through.

[Anonymous No.2712456]

>>2712436
>reading Gravity's Rainbow is like reading in a language I only half-understand.
That means it's fucken garbage

>>2712450
>at times seemingly all over the place, but that's just his style.
That is a horrible fucken style.

Roaches strike again!

[Anonymous No.2712458]

>>2712456

Roachguy:

Complains when people actually try to help and stay on topic.

Just because you don't like a particular author's style, doesn't mean you have to shitpost without adding anything to the conversation.

[Anonymous No.2712460]

The Crying of Lot 49 is actually very much like his later stuff.

You're full of shit, OP.

[Anonymous No.2712463]

>>2712458
You'll thank me later when this board fills up with though provoking literature that makes sense (a man can dream).

[Anonymous No.2712466]

>>2712463

Pynchon's work is incredibly thought-provoking.

[Anonymous No.2712470]

>>2712466
Ok, listen. I knew infinite jest was absolute shit, before I decided to read it. It only took me 1 page to realize that I was overwhelmingly correct in my assumption.

Please don't attempt to use the old "confirmation bias", there has been a lot of things in my life that I thought were shit, that turned out not to be--and stuff that i thought was going to be awesome, that turned out to be shit.

So that really doesn't play a huge factor in my judgements.

Perhaps I should read some pycheon to know he's shit? Do I have to read all of the twilight series to know their shit?

The fact that people can't understand what the fuck pycheon is literally trying to say in his novels is warning enough.

Nobody says "I don't know what the fuck nabokov is trying to say in lolita", most people say "fuck me! That is amongst the best prose I have ever read!"

So, get on my level boi.

[Anonymous No.2712474]

>>2712470

So, you repeatedly shit on authors you haven't read? And claim they're lacking substance? How the fuck would you know?

[Anonymous No.2712479]

>>2712474
Same way you know a city has been bombed: disheveled people crawling away from it, disorientated, confused, angry, upset, and telling you of their experience about it.

You don't have to literally experience what they did, to know it was an unpleasant experience.

[Anonymous No.2712484]

>>2712479

So you base your literary opinions on what others have told you? You've never bothered to find out for yourself whether DFW or Pynchon or Joyce had anything worth saying?

[Anonymous No.2712489]

>>2712484

Why are you responding to the troll?

And OP, take them in the following order:

V
Crying
Against the Day
Mason & Dixon
Gravity's Rainbow

and then IV and Vineland if you feel like it.

[Anonymous No.2712492]

>>2712484
I already told you:
I read the first page of infinite jest and I nearly vomited. That conditioned me to hate Joyce and Pycheon by proxy, because their writing is even more infamous and nauseating.

Pycheononon writes shit that literally doesn't make sense and Joyce wrote Finnegans Wake which is in the same boat.

If an author publishes something, he should proud to stand by it. If pychoeon and joyce wrote shit that doesn't make actual sense, and their proud of it: fuck 'em.


My logic is sound old sport.

[Anonymous No.2712495]

>>2712492

Thank you for clarifying. I know now to never take a word you say seriously.

[Anonymous No.2712496]

>>2712495

Not that guy, but he's an anon, so... what's yer point?

[Anonymous No.2712502]

>>2712496

He's an anon with a gimmick, so I can recognize him when he chooses to use said gimmick

[Anonymous No.2712505]

>>2712502
That was pretty cute, I must admit.

[Anonymous No.2712506]

>>2712505

Thanks, bud.

[Anonymous No.2712512]

OP here.
>>2712456
>>2712463
>>2712470
>>2712492
Don't, junior.