So I've been studying engineering physics for a couple years, which is what Thomas Pynchon studied at Cornell before he switched to writing. There were many references in the book that only an engineer would understand, especially around the middle at Mittewerke. Stuff about calculus, electromagnetism, manometers and fluid mechanics etc.
I really enjoyed the book because I saw many references to things that I would never have expected to see in something non-scientific. Did anyone else experience the same thing? If not, did you learn it or just skip/ignore it?
Anthony Johnson
Pynchon wrote it so anyone would get it, not just le engineers. >couple of years >thinks he knows anything l- e - l
Cameron Wilson
Try not to fit in too hard, redditor
Leo Ross
I experienced the same thing but instead of the engineering stuff it's with the sex and boner and pooping stuff.
Austin Jones
yeah no shit you understand the bigger picture, I'm talking about things like manometers, and that scene where it's saying how they used a charged pendulum in a magnetic field to record the distance of the rocket or something, I forget.
Aiden Perry
you've never pooped?
Joseph Ward
Please stop embarrassing yourself.
Anthony Jones
No I have lots of experience with pooping so when he mentioned it I understood the reference.
Ethan Sanchez
I had a similar experience.
I was actually very surprised by how much I did get in that book because a lot of it just felt like chance. I also had learned the basics of many different languages and caught lots of references there and in HS I was obsessed with WWII and so I knew lots of details about weapons and equipment that I think your average reader might not have known.
Jason Brooks
Well the only reason I bring it up is that I wouldn't have understood it if it weren't for my courses, and it's interesting that I'm in the same program that Pynchon was. I'm not saying I'm special, I'm literally trying to see if other people had similar experiences.
I don't know why you're being so butthurt breh
Logan James
>I'm not saying I'm special You are implicitly, or you wouldn't be asking such a stupid question. >trying to see if other people had similar experiences Yes, of course, obviously. Enjoy your club membership.
Blake Thompson
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.
Carson Lee
I laff pretty hard at humanities plbes do you even know a manometer from a barometer?
David Lewis
Between this thread and the one about careers I came to the realization of why something felt weird in Veeky Forums.
Veeky Forums regulars are just boring engineers/comp-sci autists that are interested in books for masturbatory purposes like feeling smart or as a shallow pastime/entertainment, not for a genuine interest in literature.
This is also why I found strange Pynchon was so popular here while he's never mentioned or acknowledged in any literature course outside the United States.
>hurr durr i put raeference only nerds will understand xd *snort*
Henry Miller
it's not as if his other books contain a similar amount of references like this
m&d was better anyways
Juan Sullivan
Absolutely not, it's mostly humanities students supremely insecure with themselves so they pretend to be STEM majors and lambast other humanities majors to both exercise and reaffirm their self deprecation. The reality is they're going to get a job after graduation and end up fine even if they don't fulfill their literary dreams.
Nicholas Long
>dude bananas lmao
What did he mean by this?
Adrian Diaz
>Veeky Forums regulars are just boring engineers/comp-sci autists
plenty of regulars are humanities, i can tell. some plebs are probably stem but plenty of people here are way into shit they would have no business caring or knowing about otherwise
Kayden Howard
>interested in books for masturbatory purposes like feeling smart or as a shallow pastime/entertainment, not for a genuine interest in literature. Literature doesn't matter, you're going to die one day. Consider that now, buddy. Really get deep into that and consider it hard. Literature's a waste of time, music is a waste of time, everything is a waste of time. Everything is a shallow pastime/entertainment for you, you're going to die one day.
Jayden Jenkins
Caught me red-handed.
Robert Bailey
>on Veeky Forums >thinks spouting babby's first existentialism is going to affect anyone
Lincoln Davis
whoooaa dang dude that was deep, really makes you think, huh?
Christopher Phillips
i love this pasta its such a great mimicry
Christopher Diaz
Epic
Ayden Sanders
Whatever, I'm the one who's going to be content I did what I wanted with my life instead of conforming to such spooks as "genuine interest in literature" when I'm dying, not you.
Nolan Russell
>calculus is an arcane art only le engineers wouls understand reddit please leave. engineering is the most shit-tier field of study in all of STEM
Aaron Morales
Lol yeah. We learn calculus in molecular bio lmao. Cmon OP
Why keep wasting time then, go ahead and kill yourself.
>inb4 hedonistic reply
Luke Diaz
'Cause I'm actually happy and find pleasure in my life. So yeah, hedonistic reply, essentially. Although humans don't have freewill, so adverse circumstances could very well possibly drive me to suicide, nothing is impossible, but I feel very far from that, to tell the truth.
Adam Flores
>There were many references in the book that only an engineer would understand, >Stuff about calculus, electromagnetism,
Blake Morales
this is what engineers actually believe
Wyatt Diaz
just because you;'re retarded doesn't mean most semi intelligent people don't learn all the physics they need to understand pynchon in high school
Anthony Scott
>projecting this hard
Dylan James
I am in Europe and we did Pinecone in class.
You're a tool. Kys.
Nathaniel Moore
is this pasta or are you really this retarded
Hudson Sullivan
You're so retarded.
Luis Howard
Damn. I'm surprised I didn't realize this sooner.
Ryan James
>Veeky Forums regulars are just boring engineers/comp-sci autists that are interested in books for masturbatory purposes like feeling smart or as a shallow pastime/entertainment, not for a genuine interest in literature. Quite the opposite, Veeky Forums regulars are casual liberal arts majors that enjoy the fiction of a man that only understood the scientific and engineering concepts he described in the least rigorous way possible. Pynchon is literally "We're all stardust"-tier.
Tyler Sanchez
kek If you think you learned it in high school then you didn't really learn it
Kevin Lee
I did an engineering degree too and I thought that the references were lame and Bleeding edge exposed Pynchon as a Wikipedia skimming faux intellectual. He writes good books when he reins it in though
Ian Kelly
I swear post like OP make me hate coming on this board. dumbass special snowflake
Aaron Walker
>gravity's rainbow >weighty enough to throw in a parabola straight into the trash
Juan Flores
yes, part of my enjoyment of reading Pynchon is he introduces me to topics and subjects i am rather ignorant on. why would anyone ignore or skip dense parts of a novel simply because he/she doesn't understand them? i take it as a challenge from the author himself to read up and educate myself on a subject he has dedicated pages to rather than gloss over them, even if i will only have a layman's understanding about such stuff as electromagnetism, manometers, etc. reading Pynchon's older works really can be educating if you branch out and study the fields in which he sets his fictions.