I tried making a thread about this the other day, but it was ignored. Let's try this again.
I'm not enjoying Gravity's Rainbow. Nor am I understanding any significance.
I loved part one, Beyond the Zero. The prose was great, several passages were meaningful to me, and I got a sense of the spirit of war and paranoia. Mexico and Jessica were my favorite characters.
But I'm in part three right now, and I'm not giving one fuck about this book anymore. Tell me reading the rest is worth it, please.
Sounds like you shouldn't be here, GR is like entry level lit
You are not supposed to enjoy all the books you read
>BUT BUT MUH MEMES !
Please leave
Saw your post but I haven't read GR yet. I'd say just finish it. I don't usually stop reading a book even if I don't like it. It's an OCD thing for me.
Good job getting to part three. I'm on part one now and found myself getting lost a couple times and wondering how the hell I get transported to another area when I finally realize wtf I'm reading. It's getting a little easier now that I'm getting used to the writing. I can't help you at all but share what I've experienced so far in the first part and discuss it with you.
I don't think many people on Veeky Forums actually read Gravity's Rainbow.
Its a meme you dip
This has got to be a meme.
Maybe I'm being too liberal with "enjoy." I "enjoy" reading serious literature, but this book is just annoying. A lot of what's written in this book seems arbitrary, not to mention past events are one second in written in past tense, which goes into present tense while still in a past narration, then goes back into present narration. It's not hard to understand, it's just fucking annoying.
You don't have to enjoy everything you read for it to be worthwhile to have read it. Why did you want to read it in the first place? Think about that again and just finish it.
Nah, man, a lot of people did, at least in the technical sence of the word reading. Don't assume that you are by proxy smarter than the community; avoid arguments like "nobody probably has actually read/understood it".
I'd wager that 80% of Veeky Forums have read at least one book of the MT and 40% have read all three. Excluding our recent guests, there are a lot of regulars here: and it becomes impossible to avoid getting through IJ after two years.
Again, I'm using "enjoy" in a weird way. Have you ever enjoyed reading essays and articles, because their insightful? That's the kind of "enjoyment." I'll take your advice though.
I'm not ashamed to admit that I actually loved IJ, and I love DFW's essays. Fite me irl.
You're either ignorant or dumb. This is a crowd of people that feels self-important merely through the proximity of literature.
Yes I understand what you mean that it's not enjoyable. If you think you'd really rather not finish it then there's absolutely no reason to. I only mean that you'll likely put it down to only soon realize that you wish you'd finished it and then one day force yourself through it over again. What's another week or two? You busy?
I have faith it will be worthwhile, given how much a liked part one.
I've read it twice. Loved it even when it tried me. All I can say to address your post directly is that the story is coherent, huge, and beautiful, but it's meant for someone who can process it smoothly and quickly. It's not a puzzle book or a slog, and if it feels that way, then you're just not the intended audience.
Your irony is too transparent.
I'm not going to fight you, IJ has pacing problems, some important emotional arcs are dropped, parts are bloated and parts are underdeveloped(Hal's friends take a lot of space and seem intresting but he delves into their characters very shallowly), but it is very creative and manages to be a uncringy piece of didactic literature in the 20th century, which is in itself an achievment.
What did you expect going into reading the book? Why are you reading it in the first place?
I think it was Nabokov who said that you've never actually read a book until you've read it twice. GR is a book you will certainly not fully grasp on your first reading. Have you read other PoMo before? Have you read other Pynchon? GR shouldn't be your first rodeo into PoMo or Pynchon.
There were plenty of passages in the book where I had no clue what I was reading or what was going on the first time. But you need to go along with the ride and trust where Pynchon is taking you.
Yes, there is a lot of randomness in the book. That is part of what Pynchon is trying to convey. One of the themes of the book is randomness vs structuralism. Once you finish the book at least twice and do some further outside reading, a lot more of it will make sense.
Also, your two favorite characters won't reappear until the end of the book. Not really a spoiler so much as I'm trying to help you understand there is definitely a rhyme to Pynchon's reason.
Stick with it, I promise it is worth it OP.
80% of lit can't even read bruh.
What parts, specifically, did you think were annoying and arbitrary?
I saw your other thread and didn't bother replying because you seemed like a mong. If you don't like the book just stop reading it. No one will be impressed by you slogging through it just to say you read it.
I personally loved damn near every page of it, and part 3, while dizzyingly long compared to the other three, had a lot of the book's most memorable moments.
I never made it out that I'm smarter than the whole community. I said I doubt that many of Veeky Forums has read Gravity's Rainbow. The endless meme spousing makes it hard to take anyone serious. But at least this place is better than /r/books.
This is what I'm planning to do. I'm the guy in the thread on part one right now. I'm going to study some WW2 later on in the year and then tackle GR again early 2017 or the end of this year. Depends what my backlog is like during that time.
You should just read V. first, if you haven't already. It acclimates you to his style to some extent, is thematically related, and is a great book in its own right.
I'm already reading GR. I can pick up V during my next book purchases. But right now I can't afford to buy any books. And I already buy 2-3 dollar used books.
Just finished part one. I average about 40 pages a day but unlike OP, I'm actually enjoying it.
It's a slow crawl though and I have to google acronyms and translations every line. I used the annotations on a wiki once and I ended up finding a spoiler (hopefully not major in the grand scheme of things) so I'm not doing that again.
Poisson, boners, coal, dodoes, death, Pavlov, Kenosha Kid, you never did
OP here, I said I enjoyed part one.
What are great books to introduce a reader to postmodern literature?