Why is this not considered Pynchon's best novel? It's easily his most accessible, humorous, and interesting work

I don't disagree, but it was like V.-lite in a way that didn't feel totally deliberate. It seemed like he wanted to write one of his more dense books with it but couldn't quite manage to get it up to snuff as the ones from early in his career.

Inherent Vice felt like he was intentionally playing around for the most part.

>Why is this not considered Pynchon's best novel?

You answered your own question:
>It's easily his most accessible, humorous, and interesting work.

Books are usually only considered "great" if they're long and difficult.

It depends on who you ask. Most contemporary critics don't like doorstops.

>Inherent Vice felt like he was intentionally playing around for the most part.
Stoners, funk, and a cocktail of humor - I'd definitely say it's his joke novel

It is great. People will underrate because it's modest and not a huge, difficult novel.

Mason & Dixon is his best.

Gravity's Rainbow is good but overwritten.

Everyone who thinks Inherent Vice or Bleeding Edge are shit haven't gotten the endings.

Both have endings which you need to read twice to get because it's subtle.

They are very smart books but readers are stupid because they think you need to be hit in the face with intelligence for it to be smart. It's not as obviously difficult as Gravity's Rainbow? "Shit!"

I'm ready

How so? I found 49 to be much more confusing than this, at least at the start, name-wise and everything. Inherent Vice feels like someone was smoking weed while writing a book, 49 feels like Pynchon condensed into a novella

>Stoners, funk, and a cocktail of humor
that's basically any pynchon novel.

Cut your nails. Or maybe don't. I cut my nails before going to work this week. Anyways after work there was dirt stuck under the nail of my thumb. I don't know if it's because I cut it so short but it's really hard to remove. While I'm typing this I'm looking at my disgusting thumbnail. I see some dirt under your nail too.

I really enjoyed Inherent Vice. I watched the movie before I read the novel. I couldn't help hearing Joanna Newsom narrating in my head.

I just finished it. It really is a beautiful book, reminiscent of Joe Heller in its blend of cultural satire and abstract philosophizing. Despite being a fun beach read in form, Pynchon manages to recreate the myth of 60s California in a damn cool way, connecting his own lost paradise to sunken continents and lovers long-gone.

I'm really surprised Pynchon isn't Jewish, given the themes and composition of Inherent Vice.

So he's literature's Robert De Niro?

It's his most coherent and conventional novel, while at the same time it also manages to incorporate many of his common themes. To a lot of people that makes it the most main stream and therefore the worst. To me it was just above average, and not really as good as, say, V.

I've lost a lot of respect for Tommy Pinecone ever since I got memed into reading Vineland

She acted surprisingly well in my opinion

How faithful is the movie compared to the book?

I don't think they're shit, but I also think you're exaggerating how clever they were.

It truncates and outright changes a lot of things, but it's pretty faithful to the book's overall style.

You're not wrong, but you're not right either.

I don't think I found either Bleeding Edge or IV smart, but rather they were probably the most honest novels Pynchon has ever written. Both of them have a melancholy longing which struck me as powerful but not manipulative like other literature that's constructed to make you feel that way.

I don't get the ending

Of the book or the movie?

In the book it's the last few moments of the end of an era. In the movie it's a very jarring bit of vaguely apocalyptic burnout stoner pillow talk.

I remember falling asleep in theatres because the ending just felt so off and slow compared to the rest of movie. Hope the book doesn't feel the same way, because so far it's pretty damn awesome

>most accessible
pinefags are all about elitism tho

>I'm surprised Pynchon isn't Jewish

uhh... elaborate?

BE is incredibly intelligent. It's the smartest novel of the 21st century about the 21st century.

IV is definitely honest and I think he put in a lot of references to the "Journey Into the Mind of P" documentary. His ex-gf shows their house in Manhattan Beach. "Gordita Beach" becomes the home of "Doc Sportello" and it looks just like their house that they lived in while he was writing GR. Is it a coincidence the documentary ends with The Residents covering "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy" and then Pinecone inserts that song (the original by Ohio Express) into Inherent Vice.

Movie was good but left too much out, which is less PTA's fault than constraints of the film industry. If it were like a 6 episode mini-series it would have been perfect. I don't know if there's any other cuts of the film, but I hope he ends up releasing a longer cut.

He's a Jewish soccer mom.

lol you really believe that shit about "Tom" with buck-teeth? top kek

I like you user.

Mostly in the juxtaposition between humor and horror, but also because Gordita Beach is nothing more than the romantic shtetl transplanted from 1860s Russia to 1960s California.

Nah, he just read and loved Nathaniel West. You should too.

The goddess that is Joanna Newsom narrates it, so that should be enough to tell you it's great.

fuck off /mu/

I didn't like that desu. But I guess it works. I didn't recall it being used that often though,

Pynchon's own narration is much better.
youtube.com/watch?v=2daNrsfwDgY

he sounds like a retard

He was in character as Doc and played up how much of a stoner he sounded like.

An ounce of Mexican commercial should run you no more than 10 dollars. That's when the season stems, of course.

This is the same mentality as Black Sabbath being the heaviest metal band, because they were the first. Pynchon's late work is derivitive of his own earlier.

Probably he means cleverer, something to actually think critically over.

with the seeds and stems you fucking nit

This is a perfect example of why /mu/tants are mouth-breathing retards.

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.

...

> you don't know muh weed lingo

cry more

Nah I can just understand humans speaking. Stop embarrassing yourself.

I'm only 200 pages into Against the Day and I find it more engaging and humorous than IV. IV is still great tho, doesnt deserve the hate it gets from people on here.

The movie was great too.

IV doesn't get that much hate except from pseud teenagers. BE and Vineland get the most hate.

Something tells me I'll read AtD and say it's better than GR.

Something tells me you're a shitposting memer.

kek

>It's easily his most accessible, humorous, and interesting work.
thats why. his novels are known to be complex.

loveyou

This is really, really well done

I can't tell whether this is attempting to imitate Pynchon or a fucking retard

Inherent VICE... you think that's just some random turn of phrase from the lawbooks, motherfucker? nope, papa pynchon is workin on two levels - count em - two levels with his title. at least two. inherent = intrinstic, vice = badness. this guy's talking about some sort of evil behind the scenes, pulling the strings, man... controlling us... we're just puppets, dude... where are They? what are They doing? what do They want? i dont know, but i was there, man, when it was all going down, when we thought this country might actually change for real, it was a revolution man, in country, in consciousness, in cool. now look at us. we're a bunch of corporate slaves. the internet's the new commune, and they're lookin to take that over too. can they even be stopped? i dont think so, once a man goes down the toilet, he cant come out again. the bananas are in the air.

I know this is just one of those pastas stemming from the original "this isn't your grandad's literature" one, but in all likelihood he probably originally encountered the term when reading The Recognitions since it's used a handful of times there.

You are fucking stunted.

Go home, you're drunk

Joanna Newsom's character and narration were literally the worst part of the whole movie. It ruined the whole vibe of the movie for me. This is coming from someone who loves Pynchon and PT Anderson. He really dropped the ball with the movie IMO and adding Newsom's character / making her the narrator was a huge misstep (one of many, but the biggest). The best part of the movie was the soundtrack.

What was the purpose of the narration? A film noir throwback? It's not even that female narration in a noir doesn't work (see: Raw Deal)- her whole schtick just felt so fucking corny and made me feel like I was watching some bullshit family movie. Yes I am mad. I was so god damn excited for IV and it fell flat.

The point of the narration was that the book had narration. Most of her lines came directly from it too.

>The point of the narration was that the book had narration.

Just because the book had 'narration' doesn't mean the movie has to. Film is a completely different medium. Take Blade Runner, for instance: the theatrical cut, with narration, is shit but the directors cut, without narration, is superior. Even if he did want to have narration, it could have been done (better) by Phoenix. Her character was completely superfluous.