/Pyn/

Thomas Pynchon thread!

I've read a great deal of Pynchon's works, save for Bleeding Edge, half of Against the Day and Half of V. (which I am currently working through).

What's been your experience with Pynchon? Speaking to people about Gravity's Rainbow, I get the sense that people see it as a very serious, nihilistic, purposefully grotesque and impenetrable novel. From my experience it was probably the funniest thing I've ever read and certainly one of the most fun experiences I've had reading a novel. Its scope is huge and there are a number of things I don't (and am probably not supposed to) understand, but I also feel as though this contributes to the comic nature of the novel - the plot and subject matter so complex that there's nothing you can do but laugh at Slothrop becoming a rocket-themed superhero who just deals drugs, or at the novel's weird parallelism with the act of masturbation (the arc of the rocket...)

I was also wondering if anyone had a digital copy of Zak Smith's "Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel 'Gravity's Rainbow'" that they'd be willing to share. I'd love to flick through it (just to visualise some of my favourite moments) but cannot justify paying £40-50 in my current financial climate. Plus freedom of sharing information is almost certainly what Pynchon would want... :D

i haven't read any pynchon in a long ass time, i should read something this summer, maybe just crying of lot 49, i'm not up for a mega slog at the moment

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.

Don't think anything's made me laugh more than the Rocket Limericks, they just keep coming and get more absurd every time

There once was a fellow named Ritter
Who slept with a guidance transmitter
It shrivelled his cock
Which fell off in his sock
And made him exceedingly bitter

I think this assessment of Pynchon's literary talent is really misguided. Inside all the (admittedly brilliant) jokes was the framework for a new understanding of quantum physics that remain relevant to this day. My friend who does doctorate level maths says that you can't really get anything done without a firm understanding of Gravity's Rainbow.

I laughed at this, but it made me feel empty too

>laughing at antique pasta

Did you guys just "enjoyed the ride" with GR or researched every single thing? I'm close the half of the book and just now started researching very lightly some stuff. Is fun but it will take me like a year to finish it doing this.

I've seen it over a hundred times and it still makes me laugh

i bought one of those reader's guides things to go with it, there are a lot of obscure references that no one is can possibly get all of...like there was one thing where some mosaic on the roof of that mental hospital is supposedly out of an issue of time from 1954 etc. i don't remember exactly and i guess it doens't matter that much to your overall experience, but there are tons of things you can't know, maybe people who are ww2 buffs know more than most people since there is a lot of ww2 references, like AG Farben or that international conference where mickey rooney was a guest etc. but also obscure as shit stuff like that african fertility ritual where the woman is buried up to her neck in the dirt (which blew my mind since it explains the cover of Maggot Brain by Funkadelic) etc.

me too t b h but i couldnt resist getting a dig in on a new

Certain things that peaked my interest, like all the corporate stuff (IG Farben etc.). One of my favourite things in the book is how Slothrop's journey mirrors/parodies Christ's life

His whole thing is multiplicity; the book can be a complete joke about nothing while at the same time a hugely meaningful scientific doctrine, and that's the point

That went over my head, care to elaborate?

Christ's dick could predict rockets?

i think this dude is just a case of when all u have is a hammer everything looks like a nail, if ur a christcuck and all u have is christianity everything looks like jesus, i don't think there's much evidence that gravity's rainbow is a crypto-christian affair

started reading vineland the other day, bretty good so far but i feel like it's missing something, like so far it's less emotionally engaged than the other stuff I've read by him (v. and lot 49), and those books felt a lot more dense. probably gonna read another of his books real soon though, any recs for where to go next with him? i'm a little intimidated by gravity's rainbow, though i'll definitely have the time for it over summer

vineland is like an early attempt at inherent vice, skip and read that instead, vineland kind of sucks, but if you're already reading it might as well finish it, but it's probably tied for his worst with bleeding edge

Mason & Dixon.

What English level must you have to read Pynchon in the original? Asking for a friend.

Wait, so Pynchon did some kind of scientific discovery with the book? What are you guys talking about?

I'm a native spanish speaker and I'm on the level where I don't have to translate what I read in english into spanish and I'm not having any difficulties with the books aside from the fact that is one of the most difficult books I've read. If you shitpost here regularly and get all the jokes etc you are probably fine

yeah i was mostly drawn to it for the whole stoner california vibe, it's delivered in that sense but i still feel like i want more

what makes you say m&d?

>what makes you say m&d?
cuz that's his other "major work" after GR

Nah there's stuff there, Slothrop's identity is stripped in the Herman Goerring at Christmas, around the same time the guy steals his clothes.

The 00000 is launched on April Fools Day, 1945, which was also Easter Sunday.

Slothrop abandons his quest and finds his harmonica again on or around Aug 6th, the same day as the Feast of the Transfiguration and the bombing of Hiroshima.

This is all stuff that Weisenburger points out in his companion which is a real good text

M&D is I think potentially /more/ difficult than Gravity's Rainbow because it's partially a parody of 18th century literature and uses a lot of the tropes of that genre; however this does make it even more funny when Popeye or a Werebeaver show up. It's also kind of insanely beautiful and moving and more optimistic and bright than Gravity's Rainbow, which is def quite dark in a lot of ways. I also went into M&D thinking it would be fairly linear because it's a chronological re-telling of the drawing up of the Pennsylvania-Maryland line. I should have known better really, they definitely start and finish the line but everything in between is up in the air as to if it, uh, actually 'happens' in the book's universe

It has a dense style but the content is lighter than GR, so it makes a good stepping stone. It's also just really good

quality post