Is this "novel" worth reading or is it the greatest prank in literature history?

Is this "novel" worth reading or is it the greatest prank in literature history?

Beung the greatest prank in literature is enough reason to read it anyway.

It contains the entirety of human thought up to that point in less than 700 pages, so if that sounds appealing to you check it out.

I guess, but is it even possible to comprehend what is happening?

Everyone Came: The Book

Would reading ulysses first help?

Don't try and read like you would a novel. Read around it first, listen to excerpts, and read a few paragraphs at a time. Find an overarching synopsis somewhere and get a feel for it. Don't be put off by the wordplay, it's what makes it enjoyable anyway.

both

definitely

underrated

is this the Trout Mask Replica of literature?

Because plebs say TMR is famous because it's so bad, but people with good taste realize it's a masterpiece.

well for 1 finnegans wake is famous because its author is famous/other works are widerly regarded as masterpieces

for 2 tmr isnt nearly as famous, relative to its field and to the broader population, as finnegans wake is. this could be attributed in part to 1

and for 3 finnegans wake isnt known for being bad (or good), but for being hard/obscure/weird

I bet if you gave a pleb a copy of FW, he would say "huh? It's just random words mashed together" which is also what plebs say of TMR.


Also I would say that FW and TMR are equally famous. It's only a meme among lit snobs, where as TMR is only a meme among music snobs

This thread is the perfect place to post this.

I don't mean to derail but just have a question.

I encountered the following in a niche in a corner of the internet and was captivated. Is there any other prose like this?

>You awake with a blank expression on his face. wHERE you GOING he asks. “IT is OnLY yoUR favoIRet TV dad HONEMRE SAMPSNO. mmm, DOGNUTS.” He extends his hand to you, in the middle of the shower and are about to dry yourself off, only to find that it has printed a slice of lunch meat, possibly ham, possibly baloney. This meat is the lunch of Cerberus himself. It is 3 AM. You see what is unmistakably Homer Simpson where you were just laying, a blank expression on her face. It lasts for all of six and a half seconds. She then disappears. The towel is now a white plastic egg with your life. You have only one new email. The Sender field is blank. The Subject line is garbled non-ASCII characters. Your immediate thought is to delete it, but now there is a map of your neighborhood covered in X’s. You are laying on your neck of a group of disapproving African-Americans printed on holographic foil. You are laying in bed, making a vague attempt to sleep. At least until you get up for your laptop again, you insomniac. It is eight o’clock. Whether it is AM or PM depends on whether you prefer to shower in the palm of which is a map of your neighborhood covered in X’s. You are laying in bed, making a vague attempt to sleep. At least until you get up for your laptop again, you insomniac. It is PM. You pick up your fork and knife, about to dry yourself off, only to find that your towel is not where it should be. Your towel is held by what is unmistakably Marge Simpson seated there, a blank expression on her face. It lasts for eight seconds. She then disappears. As does the dinner. In the center of the table is set for five. You glance across the table is set for five. You glance across the table to see what is unmistakably Bart Simpson standing at the foot of your neighborhood covered in X’s. You are laying on your neck of a group of disapproving African-Americans printed on holographic foil. You are to deliver this photo to the monster says “DADDY.” On the other side is a many-colored cocktail umbrella. You take it from him, knowing better than to defy the will of favorite TV dad HONEMRE SAMPSNO. mmm, DOGNUTS.” He extends his hand to you, in the morning or at night. You are laying in bed, making a vague attempt to sleep. At least until you get up for your laptop again, you insomniac. It is midnight. You shift around trying to find a comfortable position to no avail. Because it actually isn’t your bed. You scramble out of the sink with a blank expression on her face. It lasts for all of six and a half seconds. She then disappears. The towel is now a white plastic egg with no perceivable means of opening it. You are to protect this

did this book predict the internet or what

FW has all of academia behind it, it's a much bigger deal.

It's like a bad imitation of Pynchon

It reads like a cut up. Try some Burroughs.

I have not read Pynchon but looking at his novels he certainly does not seem to have written any surrealist work, though it seems parts of his novels may border on it. I will certainly read him at some point, though it is not quite what I am looking for.

>Whether it is AM or PM depends on whether you prefer to shower in the palm of which is a map of your neighborhood covered in X’s.
>You scramble out of the sink with a blank expression on her face.

I am glad to now know of the cut-up technique. Does Burroughs use something like this in a masterful way? I seek poetic semi-gibberish that retains a sort of overarching cohesiveness, structure, and mood. I think this is how I would describe .

Have you tried the book that this very thread is supposed to be about?

Oh my fucking god, I have always heard about this album but never listened to it. I guess i need to give it a couple listens cause so far I'm halfway through my first listen and i wanna fucking die.

Yes, and that's why I thought this thread perfect in which to ask my question.

It is close but is too far beyond me. I can scarcely glean any fragments of meaning from it. It is not even English, and apparently riddled with such things as neologistic multilinguistic portmanteau puns I can never hope to understand but which are probably brilliant to the linguistically erudite.

Not really.

I've read Ulysses multiple times, some sequences and passages dozens of times plus tons of secondary literature.

Finnegans Wake is another sort of beast. Though I've never given it a serious effort I can say with certainty that Ulysses in no way "unlocks" Finnegans Wake.

You might as well just start with it and do the etymological leg work necessary to access the language.

Well fack, maybe ill just buy a book of annotations with it.

Pynchon's surrealism, especially in GR, is held together by a cohesive narrative voice which you have to accept as having access to the quasi-tangible dreams/fantasies/hallucinations not only of the characters but of institutions, power structures, inanimate objects and machinations operating beyond the scope of human awareness.

He makes this work though finding fractal-like patterns which operate from the microcosmic to the macrocosmic, tying themes of preterition into the fate of single cells in the human body, insects who would have been present in the manger, the extinction of the dodo, the relationships between characters, and on and on. And he does this with dozens of concepts and symbols, the mandala, the aardvark, the integral symbol.

Part of what makes the book so vertiginous is the pace with which Pynchon shifts through these frames and the forms their structural analogues come to embody.

Incredible, thank you.

>Is Burroughs masterful
For certain definitions of masterful, yes.
It's very odd work. He has some interesting spoken word if you want to quickly check his style, look up "spare ass Annie"

Though spare ass Annie isn't a cut up.