/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.8452521]

So, just to be clear, this is deliberately meant to be the most antiauthoritarian book ever written, even more than Orwell.

It subverts its own "authority" as a masterpiece of world literature by its inclusion of the most obscene pornography and stupid songs or jokes, so the standard feeling of high culture's superiority is therefore debased.

It mixes a powerful understanding of history and the sciences with persuasive engagements with conspiracy theories and the supernatural or occult. Casting prophecies that are only now becoming fulfilled.

It even calls your own motivations for reading such a difficult and strange book into question - "all you masochists".

I'll stop here, but the list goes on.

It's a genuine defence against all forms of power, and it's also an incredible artistic achievement.

My attempt to clarify. Critique at will.

[Anonymous No.8452532]

But high-brow culture totally accepts it, so fission mailed? Pynchon sucks? It's a meme? Banana?

[Anonymous No.8452535]

>>8452521
>le 'college sophomore first 'serious' read' meme book

> so the standard feeling of high culture's superiority is therefore debased.
Yeah, because it's shit.

>muh pop cultural references

wew, so deep

[Anonymous No.8452554]

>>8452532
No it doesn't. For instance, it didn't make The Modern Library's 100 greatest novels of the 20th century (which included many dubious choices...)

>>8452535
You're not interesting.

[Anonymous No.8452559]

>>8452554
NATIONAL. BOOK. AWARD.

MACARTHUR GRANT.

HAROLD BLOOM.

NEW YORK TIMES.

etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum

[Anonymous No.8452570]

>>8452559
1973. PULITZER. PRIZE
JAMES WOOD.
AFOREMENTIONED LIST.
etc. etc.

[Anonymous No.8452576]

>>8452570
1974, pardon me.

[Anonymous No.8452626]

Missed the mark. It's just a critique of the military industrial complex. Pynchon's not even that anti-authoritarian. Anti-fascist but not anti-authority. The anarchy of The Zone is ultimately cataclysmic.

[Anonymous No.8452640]

>>8452626
That's a very limited interpretation.

[Anonymous No.8452670]

>>8452640
There's obviously a lot more going on, but having spent a good amount of time with the book I'd say that's the crux of it. The military industrial complex as a self powering system, Blicero as acolyte, Slothrop as victim, and V2 as the beginning of the end.

[Anonymous No.8452697]

>>8452670
So it's many, many digressions on esoteric doctrines like the tarot and kabbalah, how do those fit into the "crux" of the military-industrial complex?

That's just one of the several other textures of the book explored in just as much depth - pavlov and sadomasochism come to mind.

I don't disagree that the militart-industrial complex is a major theme. To say it's the "crux" is very reductionist.

[Anonymous No.8452731]

>>8452697
I wouldn't argue everything in the book falls under that umbrella, Pynchon is saying many things at once in the book, but I call the military industrial complex the 'crux' because it is the one pulling the strings. It's the Rocket Cartel Tchitcherine finds in The Zone and the force Enzian and Pirate's counterforces oppose.

Many of the digressionary motifs explore the relationships between people and systems of control like the military industrial complex, and ask why people seek servitude, be it in a political system, a sexual engagement, occult practices, or "national-socialist chemistry". Certainly with Blicero the sadomasochism ties directly into his worship of the V2 and the systems which control it.

[Anonymous No.8452784]

>>8452731
>systems of control
Thus being the antiauthoritarian novel.

[Anonymous No.8452793]

>>8452731
and I think I've made a persuasive arguement for the equally important aesthetic inventions he uses to reinforce this anti-authoritarian agenda.

[Anonymous No.8452819]

>>8452731
Also, if this book was merely an attack on the military-industrial complex, it would not have had the massive but complicated influence it did on postwar fiction.

[Anonymous No.8452845]

>>8452784
>>8452793
But it's not against all authority. Not all systems of control are shown as destructive. Not exclusively but primarily the military industrial complex.

[Anonymous No.8452878]

>>8452521
nah

Pynchon is a beatnick