[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 81 KB, 333x500, 61360N7YMDL.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4369881 No.4369881[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

What the fuck am I reading? I'm two sections in and this is borderline incomprehensible.

>> No.4369884
File: 27 KB, 440x316, HungryCaterpillar.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4369884

What the fuck am I reading? I'm two sections in and this is borderline incomprehensible.

>> No.4369883

Yeah. It's fantastic.

>> No.4369885
File: 210 KB, 800x782, der_Fünffachnullpunkt.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4369885

i understood it perfectly. you're just ignorant.

>> No.4369903 [DELETED] 

>>4369881
Don't read that edition, OP. Entire phrases are omitted, even in the middle or single words. I still can't figure how or why this shit happens.

>> No.4369908 [DELETED] 

>>4369881
Don't read that edition, OP. Entire phrases are omitted, even in the middle or single words. I still can't figure how or why this shit happens.

>> No.4369916

>>4369881
Don't read that edition, OP. Entire phrases are omitted, even in the middle of single words. I still can't figure how or why this shit happens.

>> No.4369926

>>4369883
>/lit/'s opinion on writing summed up
Pleb taste tier, every fucking one of you.

>> No.4369928

>>4369916
Wtf, that's the edition I have. Care to give some examples so I know you're not bullshitting?

>> No.4369934

>>4369928
It's dependent upon your edition.

http://www.amazon.com/review/RBVC0DP41ALIK/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0143039946&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=#wasThisHelpful

>> No.4370045

just quit OP you haven't read enough to get it

>> No.4370173

>>4369928
He's exaggerating. It's only a few passages that are omitted. The book is "incomprehensible" either way.

>>4369881
Keep reading. At least stick with it until part three

>> No.4370179

>>4370173
Oh I plan on it, it's interesting for sure, I just haven't read anything like this before. Pynchon is strange.

>> No.4370186

>>4370179
Have you read Joyce?

>> No.4370194

>>4370186
Have you read Sutter Cane?

>> No.4370197

>>4370186
Dubliners and The Dead. It's been a while though. I don't think it helps that I was just reading Vonnegut and Clarke who use comparatively simple prose.

>> No.4370200

>>4369881
Because it's memelit.

>> No.4370224

>>4370197
Just wondering your experience with odd writing styles. I don't know if Pynchon ever mentioned Joyce as an influence, but it clearly shows.

Pynchon is weird regardless of the writing itself though. You don't even know weird yet

>> No.4370232
File: 28 KB, 328x500, tfwyouwillneverdothekenoshakid.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4370232

>>4370173
You're right, I was exaggerating. Still irked me enough once I found out to go buy pic related.

It's a fantastic, impressive, and hilarious book. Really rare to find a fun-hearted intellectual with great prose. I hope he lives at least another ten years... wonder if we'll get anything after Bleeding Edge.

>> No.4370240

>>4370232
I had to buy that one too

>tfw originals are $1000+

>> No.4370299

>>4370232
>that filename
feels good to be /lit/erate enough to get reference jokes

>> No.4370326

I've read all of Faulkner, and most of Joyce, but I've got to say Gravity's Rainbow was the most convoluted, over-intellectualized piece of tripe I've ever read. That whole bullshit about the Kenosha Kid? Pynchon jacking himself off to his own "wit" with absolutely no relevance to the plot. And none of the criticisms I've read have helped in the slightest. Either I'm missing something, or GR is the biggest inside joke in the literary community

>> No.4370348

>>4369881
What do you mean by sections? The pseudo-chapter breaks with the holes at the top, or have you just reached "In the Zone"? If the latter, that's around the point where the book loosens up and takes on a more comedic tone, so keep going.

>> No.4370359

>>4370326
what makes you think it 'over-intellectualized'? because honestly i found it to be a break from the obnoxious. who knows though, maybe it made me imagine such things.
>le paranoia theme

>> No.4370355

>>4370348
Pseudo chapter breaks I guess. I'm up to around page 20. Started to think "Man, maybe I'm just retarded" and came on /lit/. Really haven't read anything quite like this before. I mean Joyce can be convoluted, but not THIS convoluted.

>> No.4370410

>>4369881
How fast are you reading it? how many times have you drifted off? how many times have you started thinking about other things? How many things have to not understood and instead of trying to figure them out you have just continued reading.

It's not GR, it's you anon.

>> No.4370414

>>4369926
including you of-course.

>> No.4370416

>>4370355
Fair warning op, the book never gets easier, it actually gets harder. You really need to concentrate, it's not a light read at all.

>> No.4370470

>>4370232
I hope so. The last few books have been comparatively disappointing, but I'm hoping we can get one more Mason & Dixon-style comeback.

>> No.4370535
File: 44 KB, 475x536, rothko1_2214608a.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4370535

>tfw when educated enough to understand Pynchon, minimalist modern art, stream of consciousness poetry, and other great works morons think are "incomprehensible"
I just wish there was a board that you needed to provide proof of a masters or doctorate to post on, seeing these highschool plebs with no understanding of what they are reading, seeing, or hearing is annoying background noise drowning out the 4'33" playing in my head.

>> No.4370608

>>4370355
...I thought you meant you were two sections in. Yeah, you're fucked.

>> No.4370739

Mason & Dixon lover reporting in. Read it three times. How people can say Pynchon is incomprehensible or inane is beyond me. His work is brilliant.

Also, he stays out of the public light and doesn't want to be photographed because he's not very comely.

>> No.4370752

You are reading the Emperor's Clothes.

>> No.4370753
File: 93 KB, 640x964, inthemouthofmadness.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4370753

>>4370194

Sutter Cane?

Not even once.

>> No.4370754

/lit/ is basically old pedos from /b/ who worship any author that writes about fucking children, like Pynchon, Nabokov, or Joyce, who loved to suck farts out of a 13-year-old girl.

Not even trolling, all three are verifiable. Pedos just like to give themselves air. They're a vain lot. Psychopaths like them are in it for the bluff. They don't understand the beauty and depths of art, they just pretend they do, and they do so rather badly.

>> No.4370755

>>4370299

And that's the main reason you read or come to /lit/, isn't it?

>> No.4370757

>>4370535

I'd wish for such a board too, but trust me, if this happened, nobody would discuss Pynchon.

I got an MA in literature, in two languages, and Pynchon never came up. Nor did DFW. Maybe these guys are all you discuss in America, but over here in Europe, we don't give a shit, academically speaking.

And I took a ton of American Literature classes: never mentioned Pynchon or DFW.

Pynchon was mostly a fad in the 70's and some neckbeards kept the fascination alive and transmitted to the neckbeards of /lit/, but it's forgettable work.

Nothing will remain of Pynchon in 2 centuries.

>> No.4370758

OP, take comfort in this quite from Pynchon himself:

"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."

Thomas Pynchon

>> No.4370764
File: 46 KB, 460x288, Zardari1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4370764

>>4370754
>pedos
>13-year-old

>> No.4370794

>>4370754
Fucking with animals, drinking piss, vomit ect. is really better than being attracted to girl under those magic numbers 18.

>> No.4370805
File: 835 KB, 1183x1200, 1387103732924.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4370805

>>4370757
b-but what about harry bloom? he just loves ruggles!

>> No.4370809

>>4370764

In the real world (beyond your parents' front door), fucking a 13-year-old makes you a pedo and makes you a candidate to prison and assrape.

Guess you didn't know.

>> No.4370810

>>4370794

It is. Fucking with animals is only legal if the animal does the fuck (thus no rape). Drinking piss or eating shit concerns you and yourself only, so it's your responsibility.

Fucking children is something entirely different, as it involves the will of a minor not deemed responsible in the eyes of the law because they're children.

>> No.4370960

>>4369881
Maybe read a little slower, with less distractions, concentrate a bit more? It's certainly dense but I don't remember it being that impossible that early on, in fact the beginning seemed to have some fairly concrete scenes/images that I still remember quite vividly.

It's also a very fun novel, supremely entertaining, so don't sweat it too much.

>> No.4371003

>>4370535
see
>>4370757

Understanding Pynchon is not some litmus test for intellectual ability. I myself can read, but not enjoy it over, say, Goethe or Melville

>> No.4371028

>>4370805

If you took any classes on 20th century American lit and Pynchon never came up, you should ask for your tuition back.

>> No.4371086

>>4370757
what authors are mentioned then? I'm curious