/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.7547788]

This gag makes no fucking sense

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QcYXWfGt7DY

What a waste.

[Anonymous No.7548138]

>>7547788
You're just supposed to see Thomas Pynchon, know that he is a reclusive author, and feel smart for getting the reference. There is nothing more to it.

[Anonymous No.7548142]

I thought it was poking fun at the media's idea of a "reclusive author"

Pynchon's character not so much playing Pynchon himself here, but the hypocritical image of him the "reclusive" label paints

Someone who is truly reclusive does not publish thousand page books with his face on the back, nor write articles, or forewards, or appear on The Simpsons
I think he (the scene) is pointing out the paradox in this labelling.

sorry for bad wording, i'm stoned

[Anonymous No.7548143]

Pine cone must be really desperate for work

[Anonymous No.7548168]

>>7548142
Is his face even on the back of the books?

[Anonymous No.7548173]

>>7548168
No, he's just making shit up.

[Anonymous No.7548481]

>>7547788
The gag is basically that wanting to be left the fuck along somehow makes you a recluse. I mean, from what it sounds the dude seems pretty normal, he just doesn't want the media attention of being 'that dude who wrote Gravitys Rainbow'. So the Simpsons make fun of the medias perception of what a recluse is by making him an attention whore.

[Anonymous No.7548664]

>>7547788
It's really perfect that The Simpsons was like the closest thing to a public appearance he ever made, considering that show is to television what Pynchon's novels are to the rest of literature, in terms of being these big encyclopedic, postmodern, pastichey, dense, Zeitgeisty things.
I'm not sure what the equivalent would be in the world of music. Dylan is the only thing that comes close as far as I know, but he's more of a modernist than a postmodernist.

[Anonymous No.7548676]

>>7548664
Pynchon appeared in another episode, here's the fax he sent back to the show's writers where he changed some of his text

>Homer is my role model

[Anonymous No.7548697]

>>7548664
As far as an equivalent in music I'd say maybe Frank Zappa.

[Anonymous No.7548884]

>>7548664
>>7548697
/mu/tant here. Matt Groening was a fan of Zappa's records so I think the Zappa comparision is probably pretty close when also considering your comments "dense,pomo" not so much zeitgeisty, i feel like zappa is a pretty consitent iconoclast, wasnt a fan of the hippies. Heres a quote from matt goering you lit folk might enjoy: "I thought it was the worst thing I'd ever heard. I said to myself, they're not even trying! It was just a sloppy cacophony. Then I listened to it a couple more times, because I couldn't believe Frank Zappa could do this to me – and because a double album cost a lot of money. About the third time, I realised they were doing it on purpose; they meant it to sound exactly this way. About the sixth or seventh time, it clicked in, and I thought it was the greatest album I'd ever heard"

[Anonymous No.7548898]

>>7548676
>Homer is my role model


I literally cannot take him seriously anymore.

[Anonymous No.7549163]

>>7548898
>he's too pleb to appreciate just how patrician the simpsons is as a show

back to reddit with you

>>7548664
this is actually pretty well said.

[Anonymous No.7549245]

>>7548898
do you mean everything you say? do you know what not know what an off hand comment is?or did you make one just there?

[Anonymous No.7549268]

>>7548898
>Pynchon enjoys low culture

what a shock

[Anonymous No.7549373]

How does it not make sense? It's Thomas Pynchon acting the way he totally wouldn't. It's the opposite, see. That's comedy. Take a class.

[Anonymous No.7549434]

>>7549163
>this is actually pretty well said.

>>in terms of being these big encyclopedic, postmodern, pastichey, dense, Zeitgeisty things.

[Anonymous No.7549449]

>>7548884
>/mu/tant here

Leave and don't come back.

[Anonymous No.7550635]

>>7548138
this is true for most of the 'humor' in the simpsons. that, and homer saying 'i'm not doing thing', fade to black, next scene he's doing thing.

[Anonymous No.7550685]

>>7548138
>feel smart for getting the reference.
that's both groening's and pynchon's one trick and they really know how to keep milking it. banal pop culture references, no content, no higher meaning, and it sure isn't funny... but it just makes jackasses feel they are 'ironic' and hence more enlightened than the rest of us earnest proles. postmodernism is a cancer and it's killing us all haha

[Anonymous No.7550706]

>>7547788
Being a "reclusive" author ironically makes you into a more prominent one by generating a mystique, when the point of being reclusive is to be left the fuck alone.

[Anonymous No.7550747]

>>7548898
>he doesn't appreciate the genius of early simpsons

there's no better tv