/lit/ - Literature

You could just get an ebook off libgen and read the first few pages and see if you can get used to it rather than ask to be spoonfed.

>>15039988
I'd argue it takes more than that to "settle" into his prose. It took me a good 30 pages to really start enjoying v. but I'm glad I stuck with it

>>15039988
>>15040070
yeah man no one is gonna settle into gravity's rainbow on a cursory glance

>>15039955
The best thing it has going for it is its sense of humour, imo. The sheer amount of content and information in there is overwhelming, and it takes quite a lot of focus to piece it all together, but Pynchon never ceases to crack me up. There's just so many bizarre and memorable moments.

should I read V first?

>>15040203
Yes.

>>15040233
is V a good entry point to his prose? I've only read Inherent Vice.

>>15040238
I haven't read IV yet, so I don't know how V. compares to its style. I do know that there's a lot of stuff in GR that feels like a natural development of themes first brought up in V., and that while the prose style of the two books is similar, V. felt much more accessible to me. It's his first book, so there are some parts that feel kind of immature, but at the same time it never goes as far off the rails as GR does.

>>15040170
that chapter with the weird tasting sweets hahahah

>>15040238
Would highly recommend reading them in order now you have read IV.

>>15039955
I think if you subscribe to the notion that difficult/complex/ambiguous art lets you derive meaning and therefore becomes good, you'll get out what you're able to put in. I have quit reading it twice because it is hard and the style grated after a while but I will pick it up again because it is really "good literature" by an amazing smart guy.

>>15039955
I think it's important because it gets at some German ideas of death and Welt·schmerz
/ˈveltˌSHmerts/
and naughtiness with seriousness like a balance beam where Pynchon dances on the verge of verges and he does it while telling a crazy story. I think also if you read it like hypertext links with a dictionary or internet it will get you learning a bunch of wild things that paranoidically come up throughout your time reading.

Download it for free
Read a bit of it. If you like it buy it or just read it in its entirety for free.
Make your own mind up.
Do you need help tying your own shoelaces?

>>15039955
It has a scene where a man masturbates while a woman shits in his mouth.

>>15039955
Will the corona finally kill Pynchon? How the fuck is that pseud still alive?

>>15040335
>throwing pies at a fighter jet in a hot air balloon
>Slothrop fighting off an octopus with a wine bottle
>the orgy on the Anubis
>"that" brigadeer pudding scene
Those are the ones that immediately spring to mind, but man, there's so many cracking one-liners and stupid songs too.

>PLEEZ NO SQUEEZ-A DA OXYGEN UNIT, EH?

>>15041495
>ekspechting maybe Lessie?

>>15039955

I read the first two pages and didn't understand a single thing that was happening.

i want to read this book
but i'm afraid i may get filtered by it

>>15041495
>>"that" brigadeer pudding scene
Everyone brings this up but for me the most disturbing part is the castration scene

>>15041719
Pynchon is a wickedly smart dude, but he's also got the most puerile sense of humour and appreciation for lowbrow culture. If you're not used to 'maximalist' novels like Joyce or DFW you are going to spend a LOT of your time scratching your head. There was so much I didn't pick up the first time around, but unlike Wallace, whose prose can be stiflingly tedious, it makes it much more enjoyable and illuminating to read a second time. And just remember, if there's something you don't get, chances are its either a thermodymamic joke or a dick joke.

>>15041185
Not only that, but he imagines it as a black man's penis

>>15040170
I'm reading it now for the first time and I keked when Mexico goes to where Pointsman and Mossmoon are reunited with leaders of the industry and after getting through all the security staff he stands on the table, takes his dick out and pisses on everyone.. Its also funny when the author writes from the point of view of a skin cell for example.

I would be lying if I said that the book hasn't frustrated me on ocassions when at some point I lost the thread of the action and suddenly I realized that I was reading something that had nothing to do with the character or the situation I was reading about one paragraph before without a clear delimitation between narratives.

literally just finished GR lads. anyone wanna give their thoughts on the ending? As much as I understood what I was reading, I can't quite analyse it rn

>>15040170
>Pynchons my fav writer for sure because my fav thing in books is goofs, gags, jokes and rambunctious behavior, and his books are full to the brim of it. Every novel is like one of those novelty snake cans, you open the book & POP you get a face fulla snakes and you fall back cackling. The mad mind, the crack genius, to do it! and then you think hmmm whats he gonna do next, this trickster, and you pick the book back up and BZZZZZZZZZZ you get a shock and Hahahahahah you've been pranked again by the old pynchmeister, that card. "Did that Pynch?" he says, laughing yukyukyukyuk. Watch him as he shoves a pair of plastic buck teeth right up into his mouth and displays em for you- left, right, center- "you like dese? Do i look handsome???" Pulls out a mirror. "Ah!" Hand to naughty mouth. And you're on your ass again laughing as he snaps his suspenders, exits stage right, and appears again hauling a huge golden gong.

In all seriousness GR is superb just by how ridiculous it is. I would consider it a modern Don Quixote.