/lit/ - Literature

>>18502254
what'd you think about p.167? made me kek

Ok I guess I can be in this since I ended up checking this out today rather than another book. I think Im getting filtered already. Is this book really gonna be about bombs and WW2? Not sure if Im interested in that topic. I already get the whole "wow we have super destructive weapons" and WW2 is irrelevant now. It was decades ago, we are way past it, I was born way past it. If I wanted to read about WW2 Id read a history book, and I have.
And Im not even sure whats going on. Who are these people Im introduced to? Storthrop ,Pirate, Bloath, who are these people? Not that interested in generals and officers military stuff.
tl;dr Why is this one of /lit/s most recommended books?

>>18502278
Which edition do you have? Page 167 for me is in the midst of the episode with Franz and Leni and it doesn’t seem very funny :(

>>18502294
the PROSE

>>18502319
made you look retard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>>18502294
Just by reading this paragraph I 100% know you’re going to be filtered. Still give it a shot. It takes place in WW2 but isn’t necessarily about the history whatsoever. It doesn’t even mention the Holocaust. It’s difficult, hilarious, and beautiful. Makes me laugh more than anything else I’ve ever read and Pynchons ability to write an interesting sentence is unparalleled

>>18502328
Kek fuck you I was actually looking forward to reading something funny lmao

Also did anyone else read the part around pg 116 when Slothrop is visiting Darlene and eating the candies? I think it’s possibly one of the funniest things I’ve ever read

>>18502334
sorry anon i feel bad now but i still enjoyed fucking with you

>>18502329
i always get memed into shit because i dont want to seem like a dumb person that gets filtered. my ego and all. i didnt get filtered by infinite jest but that setting was more interesting to me and relatable.

>>18502364
Well if you already checked it out then start reading it and give it some time. It’s quickly becoming one of my favorites. If you’re having difficulty perhaps pick up a copy of a reading companion or read online chapter summaries before starting a new chapter. It’s definitely worth the effort

What the FUCK was that convention/garden/wasteland where Prentice and Katje and others wetr with the priest? The Akashic Records? Hell? Heaven? What the FUCK was the purpose of Benny the Bulb? A thinly veiled admission of the existence and prosecution of immortal messiah figures?

>>18502515
>getting filtered by benny the bulb
you know the phoebus cartel was a real thing right?

>>18502528
Yes, the planned obsolescence of light bulbs (and the existence of permanent ones that never burn out but aren't manufactured because they'd kill the industry) was something I was aware of, but there seems to be more than that.

Bump

>>18502569
It is a trade off between long life and light output. You can go with a thicker filament and get longer life but it will eat more current and put out less light, thicker filament means higher resistance therefor more current. The closer you run tje filament to its failure point the more light it will put out. those long life thick filament bulbs do not put out much light, a 100 watt version might manage to put out as much light as a standard 40 watt incandeacent. In the long run the short lives bulbs are cheaper once you add in the cost of electricty. Look at the ratings on 100 watt bulbs, compare hour to lumens, the bulb with the longer lifespan will put out fewer lumens.

>>18502569
I think it's more about how people or things that do not conform to standards are brutally suppressed. Society is not made for them, and if they don't fulfill their superficial purpose they are discarded.
I'd heard people rave about that passage before I read it, but it didn't make much of an impression on me. Like you said, it seemed like a thinly veiled metaphor. I don't think the immortality thing in particular is very important, though.

Here is the previous thread >>18491112

I made a bunch of posts nobody responded to so if you find anything interesting you want to respond to in that topic please reply to this post.

>>18502294
>Is this book really gonna be about bombs and WW2? Not sure if Im interested in that topic.

That's just the back drop. The book is really about psychic-magical soldiers, three stooges hijinks, and incomprehensible post-modern mysticism.

>>18502342
I loved that part. I feel like part two was almost entirely Slothrop being the butt of a bunch of jokes (I mentioned that a bit here >>18497651). He's basically a cosmic plaything and Pynchon's an asshole.

>>18503132
Lol looking forward to part 2 then, still got like one or two chapters left in part 1. I love the Slothrop excerpts so much, the candies, the toilet, etc. I like your comparison to him and mr bean haha. How much more stuff with pirates is there later on? I like his parts too

>>18503218
Kek

>>18502326
Is this supposed to be good?

Does Gravity's Rainbow feature glowie conspiracy theory stuff or not? I'm currently 50 pages in and all I've gotten is bananas, incoherent transitions to different characters delusions, and some adultery

>>18503254
>I'm less than 10% in the book, when does stuff start to happen!!!!????

reading is not a hobby for zoomers, zoomer.

>>18503254
What the fuck are you even talking about nigger? Stop reading now I don’t want you among us

>>18503250
Shut up nigger you know it’s good you fucking retard nigger

>>18503288
I was thinking about dropping it, but now I'm resolved to read it out of spite

>>18503282
Obviously I don't expect the cool stuff to happen immediately, but I expect some kind of build up to something. Instead I'm getting nothing with any tension, build up, or coherence.

>>18502326
>sez
Never change, Tommy Pyn-Pyn

>>18503288
lol he do be kinda sus tho.....

You did study calculus and tarot cards in preparation for Gravity's Rainbow, right, /lit/?

>>18503361
I started to but then the cards told me to just read it. They were right.

>>18503293
What's with all this attitude?

>>18503293
Lmao fucking retard. It's shit, no wonder you fags need this safe space to discuss it.

LMAO. BUTTHURT MODS!

>>18503397
I got drunk nigger that’s why

>>18503602
You sound like retarded zoom zoom t b h. Don't drink.

>>18503611
I’m going to drink and masturbate all night and there’s nothing you can do about it Faggot

>>18503361
I'm using the companion book, line by line annotations, it's pretty sweet. There would have already been a ton of references that went over my head in the first 50 pages without his thing.

>>18503633
I'm ain't using that, gonna use it on my second readthrough. The only time I ever used annotations on first readthrough is ulysses. GR is comparatively "easy" to Joyce's insanity. I'm only on like pg 230 tho and I started three weeks (I think?) ago, so I'm taking my sweet ass time.

>>18502254
To anybody reading through it the first time, my one bit of advice is to pay very close attention to the Slothrop family history wherever it's brought up, even the parts that are about Tyrone's ancestors. I missed a very big, very obvious-in-retrospect detail on my first read that completely changed how I saw the ending after I figured it out.
>>18503361
I want to know where Ruggles learned everything he learned about the tarot, because I know there are layers of meaning in both AtD and GR I missed out on that depend on it. I suspect Tomberg is a good start but haven't gotten my hands on a copy yet.

>>18503735
It gets progressively harder, but I don't think going through once without annotations is a bad idea at all. I didn't look at any outside notes until after I finished it.
There are still a few specific sections that made almost no strictly literal sense beyond the vague impression they left behind, and I'm sure you'll find them too.

>>18503748
Some anon in the last thread said that the tarot shit is basic so any introductory book on tarot will do.

Very cool. Picked it up and am around pg 60, doing 20 or so a night, just to finish my IJ, 2666, GR postmodern trifecta.
See folks are in the similar boat, what is exactly going on, and who or what?
Very impressed with Pynchon as a writer. Not doing the companion, and might not catch up to the summer read along, but glad to know my internet brothers are along this track with me.

>>18503769
That's almost kinda disappointing. I feel like Tommy loves puzzles too much for it to be too straightforward.
Maybe he left it very basic in GR and learned more about it by the time he wrote AtD? The latter has several characters that are expressly laid out as manifestations of specific cards and an entire secret society based on finding out who they are, and I strongly suspect there are hidden ones not spelled out quite as clearly that I missed.

>>18503769
Not the anon you're responding to, but I am the anon who said that. In general, I feel like all literary people should give some time to studying tarot, Carl Jung, hero with a thousand faces, and mysticism (kabbalah, gnoticism) since these things are utilized so often in literary works (see: gravity's rainbow) but even more meaningfully is that they completely alter one's ability to comprehend novels in general.

>>18503797
I meant that learning tarot is basic. Pynchon uses tarot here fairly complexly but also in fairly obvious ways (Slothrop = fool).

where can i find a companion for this book to download? i doubt my library has one.

>>18503836
I found weisenburger version on archive.org, so i guess thats it.

>>18503836
Libgen

>>18503748
What detail f-fren?

>>18504029
Slothrop's ending confused the hell out of me at first and I thought he just died off-screen somewhere. It turns out that, reflecting on being caught between Them and the Counter-Balance, knowing he'd be killed in the conflict either way, he went back to the very old heretical-Calvinist Slothrop doctrine of preterition, of being neither elect nor damned, and won his own small victory by fading out of view of the entire conflict. It was genius, because Pynchon depicted it exactly that way - his last appearances in the book he's unrecognizable, hidden, or barely there at all, and then the narrative itself loses him to a footnote of a forgotten record. He escapes.
He never realizes what he has to do until Enzian brings up how the last of his people describe their own fate. "Mba-kayere." "I am passed over."

Damn, this thread convinced me to reread GR. I've only read it the once but the first time really changed my life desu. I did lsd the day after I finished it an drew connections I never thought about. On my first read, there wasn't any real forums to discuss what was happening so I sorta went in blind. I've spent the last two months trying to convince everyone else in my life to read it.
But I'm halfway through AtD and want to continue to finish it so idk. Would also reccomend Mason and Dixon after reading GR. If feels alot more like a story rather han some esoteric bible of sorts.

>>18504085
That really does make a lot of sense and ties together the whole mess of ideas I was left with after reading. Thanks fren

>mfw breakfast

I decided to try out a recipe for banana pancakes after Pirate's Banana Breakfast gave me a craving.
They turned out delicious, though I'll wind up tweaking the recipe a bit next time I make them.

>>18503250
PYNCHED
>>18503293
come on now no need to be like that

Are there any history books that focus on the last 6-12 months of Nazi Germany, specifically, race between Allies and Soviets for German scientist and equipment? Nazis running around, escaping, destroying evidence, desperate attempts to hide 'secret weapons' and such. Basically, The Zone, as in the book.

>a book needs a companion book to be enjoyable
Love /lit/ memes kek.

>>18505369
>to be enjoyable
not that. but to be graspable. it's very episodic and playful, and therefore enjoyable.

>>18502294
>I think Im getting filtered already
that just means it's working

>>18503250
one of the best chapters in the book

starting my read now. At work, bored, it is rainy. Ttyl faggots

>>18502254
>180 pages in
where is that?

>>18502254
I started reading this in March, made it to page 388 before getting distracted by garbage life circumstances. Gonna hop back in and hopefully finish it soon

>>18505236
Imperium by Francis Yockey talks a lot about the end of the war + the atrocities committed post-war by the Russians. It's massive, so there are a lot of other topics too.

>>18506090
that's right where part 2 begins in my copy

>>18506121
nice
I'll jump in there and join you

how hard is GR compared to Ulysses?

>>18506191
Harder, imo. Ulysses is difficult because of the specificity of classical knowledge required to catch all of its references, but it at least has the overarching analog of The Odyssey to ground you. GR is difficult, not simply because Pynchon is an insanely stylised writer, but because he incorporates so much technical knowledge– Occultism, Astrology, thermodynamics, pavlovian psychology, pure mathematics, etc. into the book.

>>18503218
my sides at the bananas

Just starting part 2 today. I made it through part 1 pretty okay by just checking on online episode summaries on my way through in order to make to sure I was grasping what was happening and I found this to be quite helpful. I saw some anons saying that the companion isn’t necessary the first read through - is this true or am I missing out? Should I just finished the book now without it or get a copy?

>>18506479
I found using a companion helpful to fill in some gaps. Some of the books sections are so dense it's very easy to lose track of what was actually happening without backtracking or rereading sections.

>>18506191
Easier

i started again with the companion. it was nice to get what some phrases and references meant. sometimes it didnt matter because id realize it was some reference i didnt know and it wasnt important overall but now im not thrown off by some weird saying from the past. Explaining the setting helped also because i was trying to figure out where and when this was happening and if psychic powers was just a metaphor or "real" in this book. I might be able to get away without the companion but i will miss a lot. it kind of breaks up the flow when i switch between the book and the companion, which i dont like.

>>18506694
if using a companion, you should read several sections without looking at the companion. Then return to the companion to digest what you read.

>>18502364
Really? I loved the setting of GR, infinite jest seemed like it spread itself thin over a cookie-cutter maximalist idea bin. GR seemed pretty tightly knit and masterful in its themes of post-war Central Europe and technology.

To be fair I put down IJ but devoured GR

Does anyone have a link to an online copy of a companion? It’s so fucking expensive

>>18506886
i found one on archive.org by weisenburger.

>>18506886
>Go to libgen dot is
>use the search option
Voila

>>18506886
Library bro

>>18506886
>https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Gravitys-Rainbow/

>>18505369
That's postmodernism bro. Where do you think DFW got the idea for all the endnotes? It's straight from GR. There are specific cultural references and jokes you won't understand unless you were an American born 60 years ago.

>>18507311
thats how i felt. language evolves. i have no idea what was popular in the 40s, what terms they used, their slang, common knowledge, etc.

what in the FUCK is going on inside of this toilet Pynchon?

>>18507459
A mulatto with a whipping fetish apparently

>>18507459
Something to do with Malcolm X and Oakley Hall. Who knows?

There are two more turds,

Okay, part 1, episode 2. Pirate seems to be having a fantasy of Osmo concerning a giant bug, is that correct? It says it was outside of sleep, so it was more of a daydream? He is basically mentally seeing what other people fantasize about? It said he went out to visit the adenoid for two years. Does that mean that Osmo was fantasizing about this for two years so Pirate was fantasizing with him? I wonder how this will be useful to learn of peoples fantasies. I have fantasies where Im reborn with all the knowledge I have now and redo a lot of stuff in my life. I suppose if someone wanted to know more about events in my life they would learn a lot.

>>18508968
look up what an adenoid is. ur kind of close otherwise

>>18509058
Oh ok I thought it was a bug but its some nasal part of the throat, like the tonsil. So Osmo was having problems with his throat because of his cocaine habit then was murdered to stop him from finishing the bridge. Pirate was able to tell the firm about his cocaine habit to make it easy to murder him somehow? With tapioca?

>mfw rocket

>>18502254
just got to the end of the part where Slothrop has a dream about the girl fucking all the animals and has an octopus & reindeer come out of her pussy.

>>18509593
All answers are "maybe?" Just move on, it isnt an important chapter narratively.

>He shrugs, convulsive, helpless, showering both of them. “It’s the only place I knew to come.” Her smile slowly unpurses. Gingerly he steps across the sill then, not sure if it’s door or high window, into her deep room.
>not sure if it’s door or high window
what did he mean by this?

>>18502294
GR is as relevant today as it ever was lol

big homosexual energy coming out of this thread

Gonna try to post more of my notes in these topics, hopefully others will too.

Notes for Part 2 Ep 3 (just finished, p. 239 in my version):

General outline: Introduction to Springtime in Europe ; Carroll Eventyr's second seance with Roland: Roland prophesizes that Slothrop's role is crucial to the coming of the next age (post-WW2 society) and (I think but I could be wrong) that everything is planned by a "greater power" (not necessarily God but individuals in charge--illuminati, MGS's Patriots, that kind of thing)--even Germany's interwar economic crisis and possibly their development into Nazi Germany was all planned out, and finally that the outcome of WW2 will be related to the planned ultimate goal of humanity. Slothrop is following "proverbs for paranoids" in order to deceive The Firm. More info on the genealogy of the Slothrop family is given in this chapter (p. 243).

"dreaming fishes to young ram" = Each part has an astrological sign that alludes to the themes. Part 1 was Pisces, Part 2 appears to be Aries (the ram). According to a quick google search, Aries represents "the singular spirit" which fits how Part 2 has been very focused on Slothrop as opposed to Part 1 which wasn't focused on any one character in particular. Having a general knowledge of astrology already, I've always thought of Aries as being passionate, temperamental, hotheaded, quick to jump head first, all of which fit Slothrop as well.

>>18502326
Pynchon was made for audiobooks, its like listening to robert munsch in the library as a kid

>>18503361
what is this from?

>>18502254
one of my favorite things about this book so far is that Pynchon was the king of shitposts.

>>18512973
>what is this from?
I typed it up.

>>18512974
Pale Fire is my favorite shitpost book, but Pynchon is definitely the king.

>>18502294
lol you shouldn't read books period

>>18503250
No. It's supposed to appeal to midwits.

The part where grigori the octopus comes out of the water and tries to fuck/eat katje is hilarious

A little lost: Why did Slothrop go to Raoul's party?

>>18513222
yeah and the paranoia surrounding it makes it great.

>>18512812
so it made you gravitate to it? weird, that might say something about you.

>>18503303
lmao I guarantee that if you're reading it out of spite you will certainly drop it because it will filter you to hell and back.

>>18503361
you just need to watch metropolis twice, second time at 1.5x speed, first at 0.5.

>>18513343
to party

If someone asked you what book you were reading
and you say 'Gravity's Rainbow by Pinch-in'
and they ask 'What's that?'
how do you respond?

>>18514261
‘a book’

>>18514261
it's "Pinch-on"

>>18514261
Kiddo, where do I begin...

>>18514261
I always just told them it was about Germany at the very end of the war when we were running around competing with the Soviets for Nazi scientists and equipment. That's a good enough broad-strokes summary.

>>18514261
Illumanati are attempting to control the life of an American WW2 soldier because he has a magical penis

>>18514261
this
>>18514481

>>18514261
"World War II book about rockets"
simple as

>>18514261
It's about World War II, rockets, entropy, paranoia, death and reincarnation.

>>18515139
and bananas, shit, boners, tarot cards, and astrology

>>18515171
>bananas, shit, boners
we'll throw those under entropy
>tarot cards and astrology
we'll throw those under death and reincarnation

>>18507311
DFW is a hack bro

>>18514261
>check this shit out

>>18514261
Illuminatus!, but good

>>18514261
Doing mushrooms

>>18514261
>>18514333
pin-chon.

>>18515806
pin-chon my dick

When he pronounces it himself it sounds like pinshin

>>18516264
like pension?

>>18516264
he doesn't

this may be the first book i read with a companion. i dont want to but there are too many references i dont understand.

Coffee in the morning

>>18515139
Who reincarnated?

if i had one criticism of this book it would be that I find Pynchon's italicized words often out of place. Italicized means you audibly stress and elongate the words, but the words that are typically italicized feel like the incorrect word to be italicized. An example would be near the end of part 2 where Pointsman thinks to himself "Isn't he holding it all together?"

Pynchon italicizes "isn't" but the line would be more effective if "he" was italicized.

>>18514261
>>18514333
>>18515806
>>18516156
>>18516264
>>18516277
>>18516288
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ds4OLUDIvg&ab_channel=TomMay

Threadly reminder to join our reading group's banana breakfast collage, /lit/.

>>18516998
but that's semantically different

>>18517002
I love that he made those puns up himself, to have that annotation on my wall...

farina, banana, nananananana
charles mason, j. dixon, come on dicky nixon
shambhala, vhe-issu, baby it's no issue
be-cause entropy
it's simply in-
evitability

>>18510656
hahaha forgot about this bit

Call me retard or whatever but for me the ending was shit I understood almost nothing
Slohtrop becomes a deconstruction of himself in the form of a comic character or some shit like that? WTF
The talk between skincells was a top moment for me.

>>18521731
See
>>18504085
The ending was not shit, you just didn't catch the hints

>>18521853
Thanks anon, thats actually quite clarifying

>>18504085
Span?

guys what the fuck was the chapter about slorthrop having his head in toilet bowl looking at shit and freaking about about getting raped by BBC? who gave people permission to write such garbage in the 1970s?

>>18522634
lmao fascist

>>18522710
are you saying fascists let him write it or are you calling me fascist? i dont understand.

>>18522634
kek.. well this book is the reason why the Pullitzer prize of 1974 was awarded to... no one..