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/lit/ - Literature

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5964943 No.5964943 [Reply] [Original]

Why does this get a reputation as a hard read exactly? Compared to authors that legitimately work you hard like Conrad or Schopenhauer, Gravity's Rainbow all seems very plain in the prose (not that this is necessarily a bad thing). Is it just that people pick this up having never read any modernist/post-modernist literature before? I guess it is on the longer side page-wise, but the text isn't very dense.

>> No.5964967

you just perfectly described Infinite Jest

I picked it up thinking I was in for a life changing challenge. It really wasn't "hard" at all.

>> No.5964991

Conrad? work hard? His prose, especially his imagery, is quite dense but nowhere near Pynchon's.

>> No.5965001

>>5964991
ikr? he is a real pleasure to read imo

>> No.5965005

>>5964943
reading comprehension isn't what it used to be. GR is not a difficult read, it's pretty straightforward, but it also doesn't spoonfeed the reader the story. the reader must figure out how certain passages make sense - i'm thinking particularly of the ones where Slothrop was hallucinating and/or under amyl nitrate (or similar chemicals). the prose is not as fluid as his later novels, either.

>> No.5965009

>>5964943
conrad is way easier than gr idk wtf you're saying

schopenhauer isn't that bad compared to other phil too

>> No.5965020

what's the point of fetishizing "hardness" of "prose" or a book? you're not particularly intelligent, no matter how hard you try, for reading a book of fiction.

>> No.5965694

>>5964943
Pynchon is an author who will have hundreds of pages of bizzare,esoteric references to certain things that seem completely out of context and dont seem to make sense, then out of nowhere you will get a passage that does make sense and illuminates a theme he wants to drill into you. Personally, im not a fan, sometimes I honestly think he is purposefully vague and ambigious to mess around with critics, so they project meaning onto a passage that alludes to a red herring on purpose. He pretty much takes the piss 90% of the time. He does this intentionally to make a statement on post modern thoughts obession with subjectivity and relativism, an ideology where nothing is 100% certain and everything is ambigious and leads to another digression of thought which leads to another digression when the previous one is considered. I dont think the guy takes himself as seriously as the critics who praise him do. You shouldn't either

>> No.5965710

>>5965694
>then out of nowhere you will get a passage that does make sense and illuminates a theme
this has never happened with me reabding V. or CoL49. just a hodge podge of crap that went on and on

>> No.5966185

>>5965710
Huh? Crying of Lot 49 is pretty straightforward.

>> No.5966797

>>5966185
please explain the narrative other than 'ucannonuthin'

>> No.5967372

>>5964943
Very plain in the prose.. You're joking right?

>> No.5967579

>>5964943
Experiencing this now. It appears that if something is important for you to know he makes it pretty apparent and often shortly returns to it to reinforce that it stay in the reader's mind for when they'll need it. I found IJ more difficult in that some important aspects of the story where quickly mentioned and not revisited and only upon rereading could I make the connection. But this is only to speak for the narrative clues the authors give us to piece together the plot, the actual ideas Pynchon presents in GR probably warrant a bit more thought but I wouldn't say that they're challenging enough to constitute the reputation GR has for being such a difficult read.