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Franchescanado posted:Lot 49 is micro-Pynchon. Everything that his readers love is in 49, but it's a short stroll through his world. I recommend 49 as a primer, but then to go into V. or Gravity's Rainbow or even Inherent Vice after, because it really is just a small taste of his capabilities. For some reason I have been compelled to introduce myself to Pynchon with his most intimidating works, Gravity's Rainbow and Against the Day, but it's working out well for me.
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Jan 25, 2017 19:33
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Solitair posted:For some reason I have been compelled to introduce myself to Pynchon with his most intimidating works, Gravity's Rainbow and Against the Day, but it's working out well for me. Yeah, this is great. Pynchon gets a bad rap for intimidation. His works are long, complex, they demand multiple close readings for full understanding (I guess), and his works have emotional detachment from the characters, but they're still fun, enjoyable, thoughtful and funny. You can pick any of his books to jump into, Lot 49 is just an easy first stop since all of his themes are there, the characters are fun, it's maybe 200 pages, and if you like the ideas but want something better, you can choose pretty much anything else he's written and find something better, except for maybe Vineland (ironic, since it's a semi-sequel to Lot 49). "Why should things be easy to understand?" is the quote that pretty much sums up what he's going for, and that's not for everybody.
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Jan 25, 2017 19:49
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lot 49 is a bad place to start because a lot of people, even people who like pynchon, think it is not very good. i think it gets a bad rap but is certainly not his best. pynchon in particular has been particularly harsh talking about it retrospectively. if all the conrad talk the last couple pages has taught me anything, it's that the Author is apparently very much alive itt. so if you read it first and concur with his assessment, you will think pynchon in general is not very good. i would recommend gravity's rainbow first because it is his best and if you don't like it you will almost certainly not like anything else he wrote, which is not the case for lot 49.
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Jan 25, 2017 21:16
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The more Pynchon I read and the more I talk about him with others, I do think V. might be a better starting point than Lot 49, but yeah, jump in to Gravity's Rainbow.
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Jan 25, 2017 21:29
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well stated and apologies.
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Jan 25, 2017 21:43
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Tree Goat posted:lot 49 is a bad place to start because a lot of people, even people who like pynchon, think it is not very good. i think it gets a bad rap but is certainly not his best. pynchon in particular has been particularly harsh talking about it retrospectively. if all the conrad talk the last couple pages has taught me anything, it's that the Author is apparently very much alive itt. so if you read it first and concur with his assessment, you will think pynchon in general is not very good. This keeps coming up here. V. is a fun read and a much better introduction since the plot goes all over the world (it's actually a bunch of short stories stitched together into a narrative) and Benny Profane and some of the other characters are written with much more compassion than anything in Lot 49 which feels kind of sterile by comparison. Lot 49 has a slow start too while V. opens in a bar full of drunk sailors fighting one another to suck beer from breast-shaped taps. V. is more like juvenilia but I kind of like it the best, it's flawed but more emotionally sound than some of his later works. Pynchon has a recurring problem of getting his characters to come to life and Lot 49 is probably the worst for that.
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Jan 25, 2017 21:58
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Franchescanado posted:His works are long, complex, they demand multiple close readings for full understanding (I guess), I only just finished Part 2 of Against the Day yesterday. I bought the book months ago, and it'll probably take months to get through it, because I'm reading online annotations at the same time and alternating between AtD and other books.
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Jan 26, 2017 02:00
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I'm not too sure that a 700-900 (depending on the edition and publisher) novel is the best place to start if you haven't read Pynchon yet. If Lot 49 is a bad start, I would probably recommend Inherent Vice instead. It's a lot shorter, and still has a lot of the elements that seems to be typical for Pynchon. While I liked it, I'm glad I didn't read Gravity's Rainbow as the first one.
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Jan 26, 2017 12:56
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I bounced off Lot 49 pretty hard so I got Inherent Vice for Christmas to give him another go
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Jan 26, 2017 13:12
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I think gravity's rainbow is a great place to start, if a little daunting. Not only is it a good gateway to pynchon, it's a guide on how to read and dissect postmodern texts. It's filled with mises-en-abyme and reader representations. A slew of characters can be seen as different attitudes and perspectives to understanding and analyzing the text itself. At the same time Pynchon also has fun with this and mocks the whole process of (over)analysis in studying texts. It's such a deep and multilayered work that you'd do well to read it a couple of times. So my advice would be to start with gravity and see if you like it. Then read it again and see what more you can find in it. And basically just keep reading it over and over again. Hell i don't know if it's a good place to start or not. It's pretty great tho.
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Jan 26, 2017 14:04
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lot 49 is fine and you can read it in an afternoon so you might as well, idk why everyone's getting weird about what book to read first
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Jan 26, 2017 14:35
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i'm reading it for uni so i don't have the luxury of choosing which pynchon to start with unfortunately. i did however pick up gravity's rainbow at the library which i'm sure i'll have read by the end of the next year. it's huge.hog fat posted:well stated and apologies. no worries man
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Jan 26, 2017 15:32
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the only pynchon ive read is Mason and Dixon
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Jan 26, 2017 16:21
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What's the good stuff that Simon and Schuster publishes? I have a 40% discount for their web catalog.
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Jan 26, 2017 18:45
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save it for the milo yiannopoulos book in march
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Jan 26, 2017 19:01
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I like V. a lot. It's a good place to start and is a good leadup to GR.
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Jan 26, 2017 19:07
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Any recs for good secondary literature on Derrida? I picked up Christopher Norris' Derrida in the old Fontana Modern Masters but could use something complementary that has the benefit of hindsight. TYVM
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Jan 26, 2017 19:23
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Boatswain posted:Any recs for good secondary literature on Derrida? I picked up Christopher Norris' Derrida in the old Fontana Modern Masters but could use something complementary that has the benefit of hindsight. TYVM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNOXuurUODE
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Jan 26, 2017 19:41
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I'm mostly interested in Deconstruction as a historical movement and right now don't have the time for of grammatology/pharmakon/disseminations usw good clip though
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Jan 26, 2017 19:48
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Jerome Agricola posted:I think gravity's rainbow is a great place to start, if a little daunting. Not only is it a good gateway to pynchon, it's a guide on how to read and dissect postmodern texts. It's filled with mises-en-abyme and reader representations. A slew of characters can be seen as different attitudes and perspectives to understanding and analyzing the text itself. At the same time Pynchon also has fun with this and mocks the whole process of (over)analysis in studying texts. It's such a deep and multilayered work that you'd do well to read it a couple of times. So my advice would be to start with gravity and see if you like it. Then read it again and see what more you can find in it. And basically just keep reading it over and over again. Hell i don't know if it's a good place to start or not. It's pretty great tho. I began my exploration of Pynchon with GR. Then I proceeded to finish his entire oeuvre through M&D (AtD had not yet been published) before actually finishing GR itself. Then I re-read GR with the Weisenburger companion and my face came off and started flapping around the room.
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Jan 26, 2017 20:11
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Guys, how bad is The Circle? Edit: I've never read Eggars, besides his Infinite Jest intro. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Jan 26, 2017 |
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Jan 26, 2017 21:37
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Franchescanado posted:Guys, how bad is The Circle? Well if you like Pynchon and you like Wallace... ... ...you're going to hate Dave Eggers.
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Jan 26, 2017 22:59
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Dave Eggers is a precious fragile angel, don't badmouth him
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Jan 26, 2017 23:20
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dave eggers should be fed into a rock crusher
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Jan 27, 2017 00:39
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i'm dave eggers irl, please don't make fun of my bad books for simpletons
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Jan 27, 2017 00:47
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more like derridon't e: dave eggers wrote the novelization of the 2009 where the wild things are movie which is really all you should need to know about dave eggers chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Jan 27, 2017 |
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Jan 27, 2017 01:40
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Boatswain posted:I'm mostly interested in Deconstruction as a historical movement and right now don't have the time for of grammatology/pharmakon/disseminations usw This is good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvAwoUvXNzU&t=1s If you watch the whole lecture series it kind of puts him in a whole context. This guy is also good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np72VPguqeI I find these better than a lot of secondary literature on Derrida btw. There's a lot of needless mythologising and obfuscation
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Jan 27, 2017 02:20
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The Dave Eggers intro to Infinite Jest is so good
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Jan 27, 2017 03:57
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bitterness removed
Eugene V. Dubstep fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Jan 27, 2017 |
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Jan 27, 2017 04:17
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there's a lot of affluent american authors from new york with names like dave, jonathan, garth, and bombo, and they're all extremely stupid
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Jan 27, 2017 06:16
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A human heart posted:there's a lot of affluent american authors from new york with names like dave, jonathan, garth, and bombo, and they're all extremely stupid Don't forget Ben
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Jan 27, 2017 06:22
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A human heart posted:there's a lot of affluent american authors from new york with names like dave, jonathan, garth, and bombo, and they're all extremely stupid More like effluent authors
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Jan 27, 2017 08:01
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What's the name of the author who left his wife for like Natalie Portman but didn't check w/ Portman first? e: his latest book was about a guy divorcing his wife while in the background Isreal either gets invaded or does some invading, I don't know, I've not read it.
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Jan 27, 2017 11:11
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Mr. Squishy posted:What's the name of the author who left his wife for like Natalie Portman but didn't check w/ Portman first? Johnathon Safran Foer & it gets funnier every time I think about it so thank you for reminding me.
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Jan 27, 2017 12:10
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ive started reading Maldoror and now i cant stop repeating the word Maldoror in my head cuz it sounds cool af
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Jan 27, 2017 12:49
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CestMoi posted:More like effluent authors good one CestMoi
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Jan 27, 2017 13:21
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fridge corn posted:ive started reading Maldoror and now i cant stop repeating the word Maldoror in my head cuz it sounds cool af its badass. I got that new translation recently and it's cool how the guy spends the intro slamming all the previous translators
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Jan 28, 2017 06:02
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Zesty Mordant posted:its badass. I got that new translation recently and it's cool how the guy spends the intro slamming all the previous translators by lykiard, right? i have the knight translation and ive heard he goes out of his way to specifically poo poo on that. i'll need to read it
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Jan 28, 2017 16:53
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Ive got the penguin classics one idk who translated that one
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Jan 28, 2017 18:00
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fridge corn posted:Ive got the penguin classics one idk who translated that one thats knight yeah
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Jan 28, 2017 22:16
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