/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.5071065]

tried gravitys rainbow and was bored to tears. is the book secretly shit and everyone is just pretending to have read and liked it? and in b4 "pleb" - I want to know what you actually liked about it, other than what wiki told you.

[Anonymous No.5071080]

it's mostly gibberish

[Anonymous No.5071084]

Yeah, this is basically true for all of "highly regarded" literary works.

[Anonymous No.5071087]

>>5071065
I miss daria ;_;

[Anonymous No.5071108]

One should avoid most books published after 1945.

[Anonymous No.5071114]

>>5071065
I started it today, have only read the first fifteen pages or so. It's already made me chuckle a couple times, jury's it on how much I like it.

[Anonymous No.5071116]

>>5071084
same feeling of naked emperors with naked lunch and ulysses

[Anonymous No.5071124]

>>5071114
op here. the banana stuff was funny, but then it gets to page after pages of nothing much

[Anonymous No.5071234]

seems to be the case for most major postmodern literature...

[Anonymous No.5071293]

>>5071124
you didn't get to the shit-eating scene? the S&M pedo scene? the escape from Marvy's Mothers via hot air balloon? too bad, you lost out.

[Anonymous No.5071327]

>>5071065
>I want to know what you actually liked about it, other than what wiki told you.
Talk about a loaded question...

[Anonymous No.5072332]

>>5071065
There's a ton of screwball humor, it's a hell of a slog, but also hilarious in spots. It's also filled with food for thought. I kind of got the feeling that Pynchon was sort of latching onto, or maybe recording some sort of cultural shift as science's rigorous quantification of things started to edge out some of life's spirituality and threaten the idea of free will.

[Anonymous No.5072373]

>>5071293
Oh my god that's so random!

[Anonymous No.5072389]

>>5072373
>what are: adventure narratives

[Anonymous No.5072418]

>>5071087

Jane Lane thread?

[Anonymous No.5072768]

>posts an image from a cartoon that panders to narcissistic teenagers who think the are smarter than everyone else
>dismisses a book by implying that everybody is simply lying when they say they like it
>assumes that everybody who likes GR uses Wikipedia to form their opinions and are incapable of making their own

Seriously OP, you need to get out of your own head and talk to some other people; this level of solipsistic pretension is a little bit disturbing to me

[Anonymous No.5072795]

I've never found Pynchon boring, but I have found him frustratingly difficult at times. I am reading through GR right now, and I find that I have to read each section twice to really understand it. On the first read, I find his prose tedious and dense. On the second, I find it beautiful, moving, hilarious, erotic ... there are many parts I could read over and over again and never tire of.

Write down all the words you don't know on the first read and look them up before the second. Also, you might want to consult an online wiki ( http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page ) because somehow Pynchon knows an awful lot about 40s pop culture.

[Anonymous No.5072807]

It's been a while since I've read it but I liked the insane scope and variety of what's presented, in terms of tone and in terms of content. I liked the quality of what's being presented. And I liked the structure it was put on and the whole it formed, which I thought was interesting. I don't know what else to say man. It was a lot of strange shit, really well described, that connected with itself in interesting ways.

[Anonymous No.5072814]

>>5072768
I never said "no one has read it." if I were that certain, even to the point of solipsism, why would I be asking about it on an image board? I'm genuinely interested in other people's take on it, but all I ever get is regurgitation.

[Anonymous No.5072820]

>>5071065
I've only read a little, say 50 pages.

What I liked is the immense detail you get on so many insanely different things and how they all mesh together to further the story.

This might collapse later on it might not, but I dug it when I had a gander.

[Anonymous No.5072825]

>>5072418
...proceed...

[Anonymous No.5072837]

>>5071065
Been reading it for a week now, at page 530 or so. There is a plot that develops with a surprisingly rich background story, but it took me at least 350 pages to put it together. I still don’t see how this is such an extraordinary book… but worth the read if you are an avid reader.

[Anonymous No.5072854]

>>5071065
>tried gravitys rainbow and was bored to tears. is the book secretly shit and everyone is just pretending to have read and liked it?

Yes, you got it. You're an actual patrician because you saw the bullshit and called it bullshit.

Let plebs fear peer pressure.

[Anonymous No.5072924]

>>5072854
>feels like that guy in π

[Anonymous No.5073157]

[Anonymous No.5073266]

>>5072418
always wished for more andrea

[Anonymous No.5074136]

I'm about 250 pages in right now. My favorite thing about the novel at this point is the perspective shifts and the trippy way they are performed. A few times during my read I actually had to put the book down and just let my brain catch up with what had just happened. This is certainly not a book for the faint of heart, and nothing you should be trying to rush through. Take your time and appreciate what and how things are happening, the form and the approach. And don't be afraid to put it down.

But you probably won't, so why do I keep typing? I don't know.

[Anonymous No.5074146]

[Anonymous No.5074148]

>>5071084
>>5071116
>too dumb to understand
>must be because of the book!

[Anonymous No.5074150]

[Anonymous No.5075693]

>>5071065
Why is it every time someone doesn't like something it's a giant conspiracy against them and not just 'I didn't like it'
I didn't like Hamlet 2 and was fucking shocked when it had a 'fresh tomato' rating on rotten tomatoes. I honestly thought it ranked among the worst films I've ever seen. but that doesn't mean everyone else is wrong. I just didn't like it/ wasn't for me.
You just didn't like it. Most people do.

[Anonymous No.5075716]

>>5072795
>somehow
He grew in the 40s mate, and got in the marine in the what, 50s? So he probably met a lot of WWII veterans.

The thing is, there are parts of ti I've loved, there are parts I read just to see where they'd end, and an awful lot of times they ended nowhere, but I guess that says a lot more about my domain of english language than about Pinecone himself

[Anonymous No.5075734]

>>5071065
So what I got from this thread is

>its tough to read
>its way too long
>its unnecessarily dense
>some of it was funny
>perspective shifts are interesting

Why is it so well regarded then?

[Anonymous No.5075749]

GR is great for a lot of reasons. First of all, it's really funny in a lot of spots. The banana stuff is just the tip of the iceberg; there's an entire subplot in that book that exists to pay off to a ludicrously intricate pun. The English candy section is the funniest part of any book I've ever read. He's also an incredibly evocative writer. The stuff with Mexico and Jessica I found very moving, and the section about toothpaste bottles has stuck with me for a really long time. He's also a fantastic prose stylist; during Slothrop's hallucination, he beats Burroughs at his own game, with the Kenosha Kid variations, the pieces of Slothrop's unconsciousness, incorporating reality into the hallucination, the goofy songs - that section is a masterpiece. He's also very good at working theoretical math concepts into his plots, which is unusual and interesting. I also like the general vibe that Pynchon's someone much smarter than I am who's hanging around explaining complex stuff throughout the book while also making really goofy jokes.

[Anonymous No.5075757]

>>5075734
Because it's beautiful and hilarious. There are also more than just perspective shifts, for instance when Slothrop is concerned Pynchon narrates very casually with lots of "hmm/here comes ol'/and waddaya suppose he's gonna do" mechanics. There are sections with talking skin cells, there are occult conspiracies. There is about a full page dedicated to a shed full of used tubes of toothpaste and how they had seen thousands of breakfasts and nights washed down the bowls of the city. It's really a marvel to watch him write about pretty much anything.

[Anonymous No.5075762]

>>5075749
Holy shit you're me!>>5075757

I loves the bits with roger and jessica and yeah the british candy scene was so funny I read it three times.

[Anonymous No.5075774]

>>5074148
Or maybe some people consider accessibility when judging a book?

[Anonymous No.5075776]

>>5075762
Pynchon is just my favorite narrator of all time. His voice, the perspective he uses, and the places he goes are all amazing.

[Anonymous No.5075780]

>Like the ballroom in St Peter's Cathedral, there is none in these trousers here

[Anonymous No.5076062]

>>5072814
>I'm genuinely interested in other people's take on it
hence the general sense of cordiality and humility emitting from your post, faggot

[Anonymous No.5076070]

>>5072924
Who, the old guy?

[Anonymous No.5076080]

>>5075774
didn't realize the Americans with Disabilities Act extended to literature

[Anonymous No.5076118]

>>5072795
What particular passages did you find beautiful, moving, hilarious, and/or erotic, and could never tire of rereading?

Genuinely curious.

[Anonymous No.5076127]

>>5076118
byron the bulb
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[Anonymous No.5076177]

Not him but I would name slothrop eating the candy and when Jessica is introduced and throws a dart. Also the scene with slothrop and the zootsuit and the tank. Honorable mention: rocket fucking limericks and drunken americans

[Anonymous No.5076194]

>>5074150
>The rich smell of semen fills the room like
LIKE WHAT?

[Anonymous No.5076248]

>>5076194
Just google one of the phrases and "full text". I've also attached the orgy scene from Mason & Dixon for you pleasure.

[Anonymous No.5076252]

>>5076248