Why is he highly regarded? He sat in a room with his encyclopedia(s) for way too many years, filling page upon page with references from said encycopedia(s), all the while never developing a single character or raising a single novel question.
His charade is up in the internet age.
Also should I start with CoL49 or dive right into GR?
Talk about bein' a brainlet.
Start with Vineland
Start with M&D
CoL49 for proper route, GR for enjoyment.
>I don't agree with you.
>you are brainlet
He wrote some really good prose though. Also, you should probably start with Crying of Lot 49 or V. before Gravity's Rainbow. Don't want to get stuck reading a 750 page book if you don't like the author.
...
V. is pretty long and just about as difficult as GR but you haven't read either so you're excused
>this author I never read is bad because people on Veeky Forums say his books are filled with references
I read slow learner, inherent vice, And half of V.
Utter goddamn nonsense with some hip pop culture references and syntactical abortions everywhere.
I love it.
WHAts v aboot anyway. Girl ?
Nah, I thought Gravity's Rainbow was a lot harder to get through, although I haven't read any Pynchon in like 8 years.
>no one on Veeky Forums even understands Pynchon
>is constantly reduced to goofs and zany references
I hate this place
actually the Veeky Forumsers seem equally interested in pynchon's inclusion of poop eating
V isn't anywhere near as juicy and a whole lot more fucking esoteric and dreamlike.
no one but us can understand him ;)
Aw, poor you.
Please, explain Thomas Pynchon to us.
>tfw no matter how much you try to write you'll never be able to match Thomas Pynchon's prose
Against the Day really inspired me to try and write something of my own, and I tried to emulate the dude's style from one of the passages that I really liked, but man, the way he writes is just like fucking magic to me, it's too good. He'll always be one of the writers that I wish I could write like.
This is his only work that I haven't read. It looks so daunting, especially in light of mixed reviews.
Has it held up from the time you finished it?
Pynchon is weirdly impossible to imitate. There's something about the syntax, especially in GR, that makes it really really hard to capture his voice. His sentences have this bizarre quality where you'll read them once and get their drift, then read them again and notice the hundred details and references in them that weren't there the first time. It's like they undress themselves as you watch. I don't know how he packs in so much detail.
It's not just because they're really good that imitation is hard. It's pretty easy to imitate even a writer like Joyce (not to write sentences AS WELL as he does, but you can write in a way that lets the reader know you're doing Joyce). With Pynchon, it's like trying to recreate a Pollock painting. It's already so insane that you can't really copy it again. Something is lost.
It's really great. It's probably one of my favorite books from him, out of what I've read (Bleeding Edge, Gravity's Rainbow, Against the Day, V.). I'd definitely recommend it.