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/lit/ - Literature

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5360146 No.5360146[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

I'm about 150 pages through this and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be wowed yet. I may just be out of my depth but I think I'm following the plot and characters well. I think the parts about statistics and behavioral psychology are interesting but I'm just not seeing the brilliance of this book yet. Maybe I'm missing some references. He's having a lot of fun with sexual descriptions though. That's for sure.

>> No.5360156

>>5360146
Part 1 mostly sets stuff up. Parts 2 and 3 are (in my opinion) the best and deliver the payoff you're probably hoping for.

Part 4 is like being on drugs.

>> No.5360162

>>5360156
Cool. Well, I'll keep reading until the sun goes down then put in the audio book. This 16 hour road trip will be productive.

>> No.5360171

Yeah. Part 1 is like a kind of wacky, drugged out war movie. Once you start introducing the 00000 subplot, the Zone, Enzian and the schwarzkommandos, and such in Parts 2 and 3 it takes on a much more heavy, at times spiritual tone.

The last part of the novel is just about the most stunning epilogue conceivable. The last 100 pages or so are filled with some of the best prose I've come across.

>> No.5361058

So I read on further and got close to the end of "Beyond the Zero". Are these vignettes with minor characters that don't show up again at all important to the general plot or are they just showing the expanse of Pynchon's world?

>> No.5361083

>>5361058
Depends. Just try to keep track of what you can and enjoy the ride. You have to finish it or else you won't get to read about Byron the Bulb!!

>> No.5361099

>>5361083
I have another 5 hours tomorrow and then 17 in a week so I should be good.

>> No.5361105

>>5361099
Damn dude I read three other books in the 2 months I spent savoring GR

>> No.5361126

>>5361105
If I tried to stretch it out, I'd just never finish it. I have the tendency of just getting the gist of something then deciding i've read enough. It comes from the fact that I started reading with nonfiction.

>> No.5361127

>>5361083
byron the bulb was amazing
honestly its just a shitstorm of information and satire
just read, try annotations online to get an idea of whats going on
other than that just enjoy the ride

>> No.5361130

>>5361083
>Byron the Bulb
Dear God, I can just imagine talking to somebody else who's read GR all the way through in real life. It would be like speaking another language.

>> No.5361158

>>5361130
imagine meeting someone else who's read The Recognitions all the way through
you're automatically brothers

>> No.5361165

>>5361158
I need to read Recognitions still :( And heads up?

>> No.5363321

>>5361058
A bunch of characters in Beyond The Zero comes back in Counterforce.

>> No.5363369

In case anyone here knows: should I wait until I can get an english version or does it stand the translation to spanish?

>> No.5363372
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5363372

>>5363369
lol

>> No.5363379

>>5363369
I haven't read the Spanish translate, although I probably could. I did read the original English, and I feel comfortable asserting that any translate of GR would be useless.

I mean,
>America was the edge of the World. A message for Europe, continent-sized, inescapable. Europe had found the site for its Kingdom of Death, that special Death the West had invented. Savages had their waste regions, Kalaharis, lakes so misty they could not see the other side. But Europe had gone deeper–into obsession, addiction, away from all the savage innocences. America was a gift from the invisible powers, a way of returning. But Europe refused it. It wasn’t Europe’s Original Sin–the latest name for that is Modern Analysis–but it happens that Subsequent Sin is harder to atone for.

Could someone translate this with a high level of fidelity? Yeah, probably. Would it be the same? Definitely not.

>> No.5363383

>>5363379
It would butcher Pynchon's voice, I would imagine. Whenever he narrates slothrop he's very casual and at times almost regional. Also there are all of the puns. Damn it's depressing knowing every translation I've read has been similarly affected.

>> No.5363387

>>5360146

It's a shitty yarn full of references that a STEM freshman would get after the first semester. If anyone here thinks this book is for smart people, then the joke is on you, my friend.

I haven't read the book, btw.

>> No.5363390

>>5363387
>I haven't read the book, btw.

Surprise, surprise.

>> No.5363394

>>5363387
>I haven't read the book, btw.

YOU BAKA YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO WAIT UNTIL PEOPLE HAVE TAKEN THE BAIT AND THEN DROP THIS
YOU'VE RUINED EVERYTHING

Unless this is some sort of metamodern shitpost, in which I commend your clarity of vision.

>> No.5363397

>>5363394
Yeah but he still got someone

>> No.5363400

>>5363394
Is shitposting a art?

>> No.5363403

>>5363383
>Whenever he narrates slothrop he's very casual and at times almost regional.

Yeah. I don't even know how one would translate all of Pynchon's "sez"'s. Dize, maybe. But it's really not the same.

>> No.5363418

>>5363372
laughingpynchons.jpg?

>>5363379
>>5363383
Thanks.
I get the original content point but reading a book in a second language adds a non intentional characterization to every character, everyone is an american/british when they should just be them. If there's the chance and the time I like reading both versions, and maybe get how another person (the translator or editors down the way) took the words and sentences. But you have to really love a book to read it twice just because.

The only english version I've seen is more expensive than a new one and in shit conditions. I'll just wait, then.

>> No.5363427

>>5363403
There has to be a better way but I'm pretty sure most translator would go for dize, and "diho" for past tense which only people from spain consider tolerable.

>> No.5363455

>>5363427
I could go for some "dixo" for past-tense. Too archaic to reflect the cool, hipness of "sed", but it'd be cool, nonetheless:

http://books.google.com/books?id=FwIQZcCT6agC&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&dq=%22%C3%A9l+dixo%22&source=bl&ots=qeRGQVgi4K&sig=yTvrjkWGQgP9lx0xJtFeVHt0aNE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7hoCVKGtKpCRgwS5mIBQ&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%22%C3%A9l%20dixo%22&f=false

>> No.5365326

>>5363379
what the fuck is he actually saying here? I enjoyed TCoL49 but I'm not getting anything from this

>> No.5365476

>>5365326
It makes more sense in context. A lot of GR is about the attrocities of colonialism.

>> No.5365481

>>5363369
I've read original and the swedish translation, and the translation was good but you tell that the translator just got tired of trudging through it at times. At one point the word "adaptera" appears, which is the english word "adapt" but with swedish conjugation, when it would have made much more sense to simply write "anpassa" which is what "adapt" means. I imagine that it's a work that loses a lot in translation since parts of it are confusing to read.