I want to give pynchon a shot. I have no idea whether I'll end up liking or hating him...

I want to give pynchon a shot. I have no idea whether I'll end up liking or hating him. Library only has inherent vice and his other doorstopper which is far too long for an author I don't know if I like yet. Is pic related worth ten bucks

More like 5 or less

I started with mason and Dixon and I loved it. I've been itching to read GR, lot, V and against the day. you faggots wanna pick which one I should read next.

Yeah senpai. And it's probably the best intro to Pynchon. A rule of thumb for all his books is to push through even if you feel overwhelmed by his bullshit at first.

I've only read V. out of those you mentioned, and it's by far my favorite Pynchon book.

lot 49 is how i got into pynchon. I definitely recommend it.

and like this guy said, just keep reading. It takes some time to get used to how he writes.

What entails "bullshit" exactly? In what specific manner is he a difficult read? I'm not looking for Ulysses tier crap.

What are some of your favorite books? GR is one of my all time favorites but I started with TCOL49 and found it to be a bit underwhelming on the first read. I appreciated it a lot more after reading other Pynchon books.

There aren't a lot of books that compare to GR. Catch22 is probably the closest but GR is on a whole nother level. There's a lot of surreal stuff that has the kind of vibe that The Nose by Gogol has. There's also that Lovecraftian type "all powerful presence" but with logic more like the kind in Kafka's The Trial. Of course lots of great word play and prose. Some cool stream of consciousness stuff goes on in the narration.

Some people love it and some get confused and put off.

I'd say TCOL49 is a good starting place but don't be completely put off if you don't love it at first. It is very good and you might really get it on the first read unlike me.


Either V or GR, then read which ever you didn't read and then ATD.

Start with Inherent Vice, then read Crying, then V and after that Gravity's Rainbow

no never start with inherent vice. it could turn you off to a great author. just quit being a pussy and start with V.

Replace "bullshit" with information. He has a habit of referencing seemingly useless crap ranging from daytime soap operas from the 50s and obscure British Beatles wannabes, but most of the time it ties in to thing he's mentioned before or will mention in the future. Not always though. Sometimes what seems like useless trivia is just that.

I also considered recommending Imherent Vice, but it reads more like a stoner version of detective fiction instead of what Pynchon usually writes.

I agree with Inherent Vice is great and funny, but that's mostly just what it is. Pynchon is so much more than just funny entertainer.
It would be like getting stoned with a great scientist; you should spend sometime with him at his sharpest to truly appreciate him. You can still go smoke with him and have a lot of fun but you'll understand the person a lot more and wouldn't just dismiss him as something he's not or think he's only good to chill with.

I've only read Lot 49 and Inherent Vice. I think if I had started with IV I would have a been put off, so this is good advice. It's not bad, but (from what I know of Pynchon), he's mostly experimenting in the detective genre. But it's still detective fiction. It was kind of long-winded and the jokes got old after a while. And I tend to like lyrical stuff. IV is not lyrical really. There are some nice sentences and descriptions, but it's not what I'm looking for. To a certain extent, I already know I'm going to love GR, M&D, and ATD. So I'm gonna skip V and go for next. Going to start it within the next few weeks. Trying to fill my my yearly quota and then jump into some big stuff.

You absolutely should NOT skip V.

>so i'm gonna skip V
wew lad

hey, since this is a pinecone thread, can someone give me short descriptions on what they thought of against the day, vineland and son&xon? i've read gr, inherent vice and bleeding edge, with col49 being somewhere in the mail, so i'm interested in knowing whether the meister's other novels are worth it too.

>I've only read Lot 49 and Inherent Vice
>I already know I'm going to love GR, M&D, and ATD

you are in over your head

kill yourself

>Inherent Vice is great and funny, but that's mostly just what it is. Pynchon is so much more than just funny entertainer.

another dumb ass with another surface interpretation

yeah don't skip v. you may have thumbed through but apparently you missed all the funny songs and there certainly are some incredible passages in there. you'd be missing out on one of his best. i'd say it's great prep for gr and m&d. much more so than inherent vice and lot 49.

Vineland is really good, one of my favs, heavily underrated. It's a twin to Inherent Vice in many ways. And neither is "Pynchon-lite." The only thing that's Pynchon-lite are his pleb readers. Vineland is a perfect follow-up to the "In the Zone" section of GR.

M&D is amazing, strong contender for greatest American novel.

Haven't read AtD. People say it's really good/accessible but sort of all of his unused research put together in one novel. I dunno.

Will it be OK if i jump straight from IV to GR? Or will I be better off reading Lot 49 and V first?

thanks a lot, man, guess it means i'll just have to read them all

Nothing prepares you for GR except rereading GR.

Stop thinking you need to wear a bike helmet to read. I half-hated GR when I first read it but now I think it's incredible.

Don't read CoL 49 as an "intro" to Pynchon. People who say CoL 49 or V prepare you for Pynchon are boring idiots.

If anything will prepare you for GR it's maybe Vineland, to the extent that it's kind of a more explicit Inherent Vice, and deals directly with questions raised in the last section of GR (why did 20th century revolutions fail?)

You may as well read Lot 49 first because it's only like 140 pages. You could read that in two sittings. Ignore this idiot

Nah, CoL 49 is extremely dense.

GR and everything he wrote after is better than CoL 49 and definitely better than V.

V. is just a collection of Pynchon's short stories before the death of JFK and Richard Farina. Hence the extreme anger in GR that we don't see in V.

Kill yourself. That guy is right. CoL49 isn't worth the three hours it takes to read.

Ignore this one too

Okay. I will read it before GR. There just aren't many authors out there who have a "guide"/suggested order of reading at all (there are a few others, of course (outside of series I mean)). A large part of me wants to jump right the fuck into his magnum opus(es). Even though I enjoyed both IV as Lot 49, knowing I'm not just reading his best shit is frustrating. I hope that's understandable. And I would've gone back and read V, of course. It's not like I'm not intrested in it... Just not so in GR. I've read the first chapter a few times and it's fucking hilarious (I know that's weird: "why not just keep reading?" ... Not sure). But I do appreciate the advice, and I'll follow it.

Just not as interested/enticed in/by it as GR*

Honestly I'd say just jump into GR. I don't think it's a novel you should "ease into" at all, and even if it was, I doubt reading V. or TCoL49 beforehand would really help much.

You might want to try M&D if you find GR too difficult; it's still far from conventional but I found it easier. And honestly, better, although it lacks that wild impetus behind the writing that defines GR.

I read Lot first and didn't really like it. V made me like Pynchon, and GR made me love Pynchon. I read Lot again after GR, as well as IV and ATD, and loved all three.

don't fucking read V because Veeky Forums said you had to

a big change happened to Pynchon between V and GR

V is great. Also it's his first. Read V first.

If you can't take long books, read TCoL49. It is also great.
I don't recommend starting with GR, because you probably won't finish it.it definitely helps to be familiar with his style beforehand, which you can get from V or TCoL49.

vineland is his masterpiece

Why do people say to read crying of lot 49 before gravity's rainbow? I read crying and it was pretty straightforward, I can't see how it's supposed to prepare you for an incredibly challenging book.