/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.9560075]

I was considering buying the meme-trilogy. Is it at all worth it? Did any of you wicked dogs read it?

[Anonymous No.9560078]

>>9560075
Do you mean Sophocles plays?
If not, then start with the greeks

[Anonymous No.9560092]

it's not wroth it my fellow helper. i bought the memeology and they just collect dust now

[Anonymous No.9560390]

>>9560075
No greater cuckoldry than buying books of dead authors

[Anonymous No.9560456]

>>9560075
I'm reading Infinite Jest, and it's pretty good. Get it. Also, get ulysses just for the hell of it. It's probably a good book. I dont know anything about gravity's rainbow.

[Anonymous No.9560477]

>>9560075
Ulysses is the greatest slice of life book of all time, and incredibly funny, specially Circe

Haven't gotten around to read Infinite Footnotes yet, so i can't tell you anything on that.

Gravity's Rainbow is legitimately amazing and even if you end up disliking it the whole thing is worth it just for how insane the ride is.

[Anonymous No.9560507]

>>9560477
>Infinite Footnotes
kek!!!

[Anonymous No.9560908]

nothing by DFW is worth reading except maybe his suicide note for laughs

[Clive Palmer No.9562206]

Assuming you're new to this I would recommend getting infinite jest and reading that first. As for the other two, I recommend reading some other books by those authors first.
You should have some kind of grounding in literature before attempting the other two as well.
Read Dubliners and Portrait before Ulysses, Joyce has a style that you probably won't be used to. If you go head-first into Ulysses you will probably just give up.
With Pynchon I recommend the same, I'd say read inherent vice, and maybe watch the movie, then try TCoL49 and V. before GR.

Don't bother buying all three at once unless you are a supreme memer.

[Anonymous No.9562333]

>>9562206
Top quality advice.
Thnk you

[Anonymous No.9562368]

>>9560075
Tangential question.
The only Pynchon novels I've read are Inherent Vice and Bleeding Edge. I found them easy to understand. I know that they're "Pychon-lite". How much more difficult is Gravity's Rainbow?
I know I'm giving limited information but do you think I'd have any trouble?

[Anonymous No.9563483]

Gravity's Rainbow is my favorite book. Infinite Jest is overlong but good. I had to drop Ulysses in the middle of Proteus because of how much was going over my head. Don't expect to understand Ulysses if you're an average dude like me, but you can go ahead and buy it. I'll revisit it someday because it was certainly unique, but the short unintelligible stream-of-consciousness sentences were frustrating.

[Anonymous No.9563488]

>>9563483
Just adding: I didn't dive into Ulysses without any background - I've read Hamlet and Joyce's first two, and I have The New Bloomsday Book.

[Anonymous No.9563583]

>>9560075
Can't speak to the other two, but Gravity's Rainbow was beautiful. Didn't totally understand it on the first read, but the second read (which I did alongside some secondary literature) was a lot easier and just as good. Went in blind, without having read anything else by or about Pynchon.

>>9562368
You should probably learn some simple calculus & physics unless you're already a STEMlord. Not memeing, there's a lot of extended (read: several-page) metaphors that speak to the heart of the themes in the book. There's also an integration joke which I laughed out loud at. None of this will come across unless you learn some entry-level calculus & physics.

Intro to calc here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/33283/33283-pdf.pdf

The physics stuff is all pretty straightforward, just check wikipedia when terminology starts getting thrown around.

There's also a lot of sections about aerospace engineering, because the plot revolves around rockets. You don't really need a background to understand it, because the context around these passages more or less explains them, but if you get lost wikipedia will be good.

If nothing else, learn what a parabola is.