Reading this now. It's absolutely amazing. Are those who bash it on this board just a bunch of fucking idiots?

no this and gravity's rainbow not only live up to the hype they surpass it

>Harvard English professor hear

lol, tush-aye m8, tush-aye

This novel is over 100 years old buddy

I took off the dust jacket today. Been putting it off for nearly a decade. Had a hard go at it in my teens... hopefully I'll better appreciate it now.

Want to read this because A Portrait was so good but I don't think I know the Western Canon good enough.

Ugh, I didn't like gravity's rainbow and didn't finish it, but I loved Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake.
I definitely do NOT feel GR hits close to the level Joyce is on.... to me, Joyce's books were so rich with internal and spiritual meaning and GR was like awooooooii soooo post-modern and random!!!-!! War boys $$!¤

^This actually spoiled it for me.
Wouldn't have known that piece was significant, except for it moved a kid.

youtube.com/watch?v=RSPcC5N5hZs

the sample in this song is Cathy Berberian reading the opening passageof sirens. I dunno it its the same girl.

youtube.com/watch?v=c3IS5Cj_l7w

Here is her reading; It's quite terrible and over done. She really sux quite hard.

>I took off the dust jacket today.
>Taking off the dust jacket to read a hardback

I seriously hope you plebs refrain from this.

It's a completely different style of work. They are only grouped together because both authors are really amazing writers.

If you really hated GR and only only got "lol so post-modern and random" from it then I feel bad for you.

To be fair, that's prolly the way Joyce would have do it.

Yea, well, I feel bad for myself because I was really excited and have heard it so often praised by people I respect. I don't know how I'd have the mental framework to really appreciate Joyce but something missing when it comes to Pynchon. I wish I could say I just didn't get it but I can't let go of the feeling that big parts of it are gratuitously purposeless and trite

It sure is a book.

I reckon Pynchon's major novels are as creative with language as Joyce's stuff was.
The difference between them all falls on the cultural attitudes in the 60's, of television and heavy drinking, toking on phat 1's and falling into pseudo intellectual hit squads. It seems where Joyce's deep connection to the Irish identity around him, Pynchon's formulate years was spent jacking off in the Navy, so therefore he writes like an anti intellectual. So It's his ability to effortlessly portray this goofy narrator, stumbling through the narrative like a panic attack, all over the place in terms of pacing, character development etc that seems strikingly similar to Joyce's depiction of Stephen Dedalus' character in ulysses (& portrait). I personally enjoyed V. & Crying of Lot 49 more than anything Joyce wrote purely because It was delightful to read a great writer write absolute schlock and make you laugh as if you were watching outtakes to a movie

I honestly find pynchon to be painfully unfunny. All his jokey stuff falls flat with me.

He is a really damn good writer though. Some of his stuff is really quite terrifying

this shit is boring as fuck b. I'm 259 In.

Good analysis, thanks. I have an academic background more in the classics so it was nice to vibe w Ulysses on that level. Do you think Crying of Lot 49 is a better place to start than GR? I didn't feel like GR was funny, maybe I was missing things though? It seemed like it would start out on an idea with humor potential than deviate obnoxiously into something pseud. I had an argument with my roommate recently over a paragraph talking about the banana breakfast that digresses into "the politics of bacteria, the stringing of links and chains of chromosomes that have seen the bananas grow up to a foot long, yes". Hmmmm looks like I've got that memorized, because it's haunting me how grating I find it and how brilliant everyone thinks it is. How did the digressions not kill the humor for you?

>gratuitously purposeless and trite

Can you name 1 (would prefer if you recall 2 or 3) that you would say are purposeless and trite?

>in the 60's
Why does everyone say, Pynchon, 60s 60s 60s...

the 60s hardly have anything to do with it, do you not think much of what he is getting at, I do and dont want to say universal, but also at least, relevant to our age and those coming?

>I had an argument with my roommate
can you relay some of the argument?

>i loved finnegans wake

nice meme

They found the digression into "politics of bacteria" interesting and artistic, I found it distracting from the narrative to a degree that spoiled the artistic idea the passage was conveying in the first place. I think it is off-topic to a degree that feels forced/phony

To elaborate... You've got these men coming from all over for this banana breakfast. It's a great concept for innumerable reasons. But in the conveyance of the story Pynchon had to stray into chromosomes (of said bananas) in order to glorify the really basic process of a banana's growth. What is that accomplishing? It kind of kills the quirkiness that was intriguing about the concept anyway, plus it pulls you out of the story. Also it feels condescending

I want to read this book, but I'm worried I'm not well read enough to fully appreciate it. Are there any "prerequisites" I should read beforehand, or can I dive straight in?

Well, all of joyces earlier works are recommended.

Next you'll be telling us you don't dress for dinner.

Western civilisation is doomed.

This. Read Joyce in chronological order. Dubliners, A Portrait, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake.

Wait until you finish it, and come back to it five or ten years later.

The second reading is the real payoff (or it certainly was for me.)

Will do, thanks.

>"politics of bacteria" interesting and artistic,
I personally agree with your friend.

I suppose it comes down to what a reader ultimately values most, style or substance. I personally seek to read (and try to write) quirky rare thoughts that make me view the world and life in a way I never had before, when reading I dont care when and how they come, as long as they do.

Is the passage in question from the opening few paragraphs?

english.txstate.edu/cohen_p/postmodern/Literature/Openings/Pynchon.html

Whores in Turkish graveyards.

Possibly? I don't have a copy but it's definitely in the first chapter. He was reading it aloud

If it's one of a top 3 books of all time so what about other 2?

Gravity's Rainbow
Infinite Jest
:^)

Found a pdf book online, and wtf is this shit..?

>Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressing gown, ungirdled, was sustained
gently behind him on the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:
Introibo ad altare Dei