Is Pynchon for me?

Admittedly, I am a novice when it comes to literature and meme-literature, but I'm trying my best here

I began with DFW and I enjoyed IJ as I was reading it. After reading some of his essays, I've come to understand why people shit on him all the time saying he's a talentless hack, and to an extent, I've come to agree with them. Though this doesn't change the fact that as I was reading IJ, it was one of my finest reading experiences of all times desu senpai

So after a bit more of DFW's works, I got tired and I felt like it's time to move into Pinecone... and so I started with Inherent Vice, as most people suggest.

I mean, it's not a terribly difficult book but i found it hard to follow at times. Seems to just cut in and out of scenes without warning...just didn't make any sense. And for this reason, at times I would get frustrated. And I found it kind of lame the whole dude drugs lmao thing. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more when I was 19. (At least IJ's drug themes were far more real and not ~psychedelic maaan~)

And so I'm wondering...if Pynchon for me? If IV is "Pynchon-Lite" as many people put it, and I had a mediocre reading experience with his most "accessible" work, then is it even worth going more into his catalogue? Should I just stick with the Russians?

I started with GR, loved it, and never read another book by Pynchon. Just throwing that out there

You at all agreeing to call DFW a talentless hack is enough to say you are not intelligent enough to appreciate, or even contextualize and imagine why some may appreciate Pynchon.

depends what you liked about IJ. I agree with DFW alot and loathe Pynchon, GR was painful to read (so is DFW tbqh, desu)

HOWEVER, I enjoyed the movie of Inherent Vice alot. So what the fuck do I know

>read author known for being weird
>wtf this is weird
>it goes from scene to scene
>it's hard to follow
>I'm a humongous pleb
>kind of lame the whole dude drugs lmao thing
>At least IJ's drug themes were far more real and not ~psychedelic man~
I think you need to read more, because you aren't very good at it. It's not difficult, and I'm surprised somebody could read all of IV and say things like the last two points mentioned above, unless they just don't know how to read a book, or have had their mind ruined by surface level television and movies.

I may not be very well read, but these posts are just plain stupid

Not being able to contextualize/appreciate Pynchon? Well maybe in some of his more complicated works this may be a possibility, but I can't speak for those as I haven't read them, but IV was straight forward and I had no problems. The cut scene cut felt almost gimmicky to me - where it felt that the author was doing it just because he could and knew he didn't have to. Or that he just wrote it in pieces and never bothered to edit it and thought that was cool because drugs n I forgot where I am man and shiiiet. It didn't give any effect to the piece other than make me slightly mad. And you should read a bit more carefully about my perceptions re: DFW

The second post is implying a lot of implications that I don't think it worth responding to but I'll give you a (You) so you can feel good about yourself

>I mean, it's not a terribly difficult book but i found it hard to follow at times

If you think IV is hard to follow wait til you read GR juesus

Pynchon's "minor works" (to be kind of harsh) suck. If you had a mediocre experience with it, it's because they're mediocre.

His strongest works are probably The Crying of Lot 49 (which many on Veeky Forums for some reason hate), Gravity's Rainbow, and Mason & Dixon. The best is probably M&D. I tried to read IV but gave up because it wasn't as compelling as his other works. You have his logic wrong, you can't rag on Pynchon by reading one of his less formidable works and saying it's not that good, even the most devoted Pynchon fans are disappointed by/apathetic to his minor works.

Hard to follow wrt the abrupt cut scenes, not the storyline plot. Found myself moving forward, then noticed i was suddenly in another scene, had to move my eyeballs back a paragraph or two and see if my edition had left something out or my used book was missing a page that someone ripped out isbehat I meant

Nice one thanks

I didn't even think IV sucked...I just thought it was just average or slightly above average, and I'm not trying to be contrarian here, but people praise this book a lot and I just don't see the value in all that praise

I think I'll try lot49 in the autumn once I get some of my other readings out of the way

Let me build on this since you are still posting the same "lol drugs" shit.
What do you think the significance of the last scene in the novel is?
Where doc is driving through the fog, following the other cars, not sure where he's going, or where he is, hoping
>For the fog to burn away, and for something else this time, somehow, to be there instead.
What do you think that means?
For an even easier question, why do you think Pynchon would cut from scene to scene in that way, and make the novel "hard to follow?"

sounds like me when i was trying to go sober after years of abuse, havent read the book but if thats the vibe hes going for but that sounds eerily accurate. my two cents

Hope that went well for you user.
I definitely think that is a good interpretation of the way it goes. Not in the literal sense of leaving drugs behind, but in the sense of being dissatisfied with a culture, or a way of being (which consists of a lot of drug use) and starting to abandon it, like a drug.

The novel opens with doc sitting at home, in a daze, or a fog, and when Shasta shows up, he isn't even sure of what he's seeing.
By the end of the Novel Doc has helped a lot of people. He's hurt a few, and failed to help some, but overall, he's done mostly good to those that want or need his help.
He has overcome great obstacles, unraveled conspiracy, and essentially been the one at the middle, who makes it all work out for those around him. He sees the deepest secrets of the society he lives in. Not only that, but he fiddles with them, and manages to make it out.
But by the end, the only person left unfulfilled in their mission is Doc. The last few pages are like the first, in a way. Doc is in a fog. He is lost, following a group of other people like him, because like the beginning, he is in a fog, and has a hard time seeing, literally, what needs to be seen(Shasta first, then street signs.) This time though, his thoughts turn not to what the fog obscures, which he desires (Shasta, the lifestyle they had) but to what he hopes will be there when the fog is gone.
His culture, his lifestyle, and his ways have left him not in a worse position, but unfulfilled in his chase, despite his best efforts. And so he hopes for something different than what he has, and different from what he wanted before. In my opinion, the beginning of a new era, not just for Doc, but for the World.

Inherent Vice is top 3 Pynchon for me, along with GR and MD.

Inherent Vice is that good. Your problem is that you don't research, you don't map out the plots. You think Pynchon writes shit just for the fun of it (dude weed) and he's not actually referencing something specific that happened and will blow your mind once you realize it's maybe still going on.

It's fine if you don't like Pynchon, it's fine if you don't want to read him with a pencil in hand, taking notes of everything you need to go look up. But don't you DARE call Inherent Vice Pynchon-lite or pointless.

Inherent Vice is Pynchon-lite and pointless.

Nope. It's really a flawless novel imo. He condensed GR and Vineland and CoL 49 into one book and manages to make people who read for plot think its pointless when they have no clue what happened in the plot, they have no clue even what happened with Shasta and who she really is.

Pynchon is teaching you how to read him with Inherent Vice. He's saying read all my novels like a detective.

I don't know how people miss this. He's very clearly pushing the reader to go out and research.

>He's saying read all my novels like a detective.
if you dont want to be a detective this approaching is totally shit.

Read The Crying of Lot 49, user.

>what happened with Shasta and who she really is
Please tell us or give us some clues about this!

But don't call the novel pointless when you understand less than half of it.

Yo if this is all OP, you need to shut the fuck up dude. Your obnoxiousness comes through pretty clearly.

>>So I'm wondering... if Pynchon for me?

Why can't you just decide for yourself (you seem to already have). You cited your shitty reasons for disliking his work and yet you're still asking. And then you refute everyone who suggests the problem is in your comprehension of the book.

>>if you don't want to be a detective this approaching is totally shit.

Your grammar is totally shit. Stick to the Stephen King novels broseph, and again, shut the fuck up.

Peace

In fact this goes for most people on this board: stay humble man. Don't come on here and spout some shit.

I suggest you to try again, maybe with V. Try not to concentrate too much on the sense of things and just go with the flow

Yes, it sounds like you should probably stick with easier stuff. Work up to it, at least. Also, please expand on why DFW is a talentless hack? I just reread IJ and you know, I had started wondering if I just hadn't read enough when I was young, once I started seeing that meme (DFW is a hack) but after reading it again, I'm convinced none of those people even read it. IJ isn't the best book I've ever read, but it's definitely one of my favorites.