Explain this book

If anything, I could view him as some radically mystical Protestant/independent Christian, based on and also the little passage he has in Mason & Dixon about how Doubting Thomas might paradoxically be most correct in his outlook, but even then I doubt it. But Catholic out of all things is ridiculous, especially considering Pynchon's extreme skepticism towards large organizations with power, and just because he doesn't write much about the Catholic Church doesn't to me support that he's dumb enough to not realize how corrupt such a large bureaucracy as the Catholic Church is and how shady of a history it has. Also, don't forget the very negative way he portrays the Jesuits and Catholic sexual repression in Mason & Dixon. "Catholic socialist luddite" ... wow. The socialist luddite is good, although even socialist might be too far, Pynchon's views are probably more nuanced than that and he seems to me to tend more towards anarchism.

I'm not OP. I want to read against the day but I'm rusty as fuck from reading as a child and stopping for a while. I started at Pynchon with Vineland and found it easily accessible to my rusted comprehension. I was just saying if he's intimidated by it, maybe he should start at an easier book of Pynchon's.

I like his long novels more, and AtG is the most accessible of all of them. Give it a try, it's not as hard as you're expecting. If you're going to spend X amount of time over the next however long reading anyway, what's the difference if it's one huge book rather than a few short ones? The long ones (assuming they're written by someone like Pynchon) tend to be more rewarding anyway.

If you're right about its accessibility, then I can't really argue against that desu

the middle part drags but the conclusion is the best in any of his works

He attends a Catholic church in Manhattan though.

bullshit, which one? i'll go there and photo him if true, he comes from an old protestant family that goes back to the colonies, why would he convert to some freaky cult of authoritarian pedos

>he comes from an old protestant family that goes back to the colonies, why would he convert to some freaky cult of authoritarian pedos

Confirmed for not knowing shit about Pynchon. His father was Protestant but his mother was a hardcore Catholic and the kids were raised Catholic. He was a practicing Catholic while still attending Cornell.

From Kathryn Hume's "The Religious and Political Vision of Pynchon's Against the Day"

...

...

...

He is a Catholic, at least, it was well-known when he was a kid and up to the publication of Gravity's Rainbow.

You're projecting your want of him to be protestant or atheist and it's sad

I'm not projecting any want, as I am neither a Protestant nor an atheist, I'm just saying what I see in his works. I know that is true but I find it hard to believe he's still a Catholic considering the points I mentioned

>going into depth about a gay erotic fantasy concerning Jesus in Gravity's Rainbow (I can't see anyone who has much respect for mainstream Christianity doing that)
>interest in the occult and mysticism
>distrust of large bureaucratic organizations and interest in conspiracies/historical fuck-ups of said organizations
>parodying/criticizing Jesuits and catholics in m&d

>going into depth about a gay erotic fantasy concerning Jesus in Gravity's Rainbow

citation needed!

> interest in the occult and mysticism

doesn't mean he's an occultist, he's interested in technology but not a technophile

>distrust of large bureaucratic organizations and interest in conspiracies/historical fuck-ups of said organizations

you might be onto something here

>parodying/criticizing Jesuits and catholics in m&d

he satirizes Jesuits specifically, not Catholics as a whole, and Jesuits are controversial among Catholics, many don't like them

>He is a Catholic

He may have been raised Catholic (which I doubt because of his literal WASP background) but his views on religion border on animism

Jules Siegel said Pynchon went to Mass and confessed.

>citation needed!
Read Gravity's Rainbow. This erotic fantasy is very deliberately comical and offensive, and I find it hard to imagine any Christian writing it.

>doesn't mean he's an occultist, he's interested in technology but not a technophile

This is wearying. If you read Gravity's Rainbow, you can see Pynchon is interested in the occult. He uses the Kabbalah and Tarot to great effect in the ending.

>he satirizes Jesuits specifically, not Catholics as a whole, and Jesuits are controversial among Catholics, many don't like them

That's an OK point.

>his views on religion border on animism
This I like. Pynchon is too mystical to be Catholic. In fact, it's hard to even see him as Protestant. is also true but I can imagine him doing that to please his parents perhaps, who knows. I'm not invested in him not being a Catholic, it just doesn't make sense to me when you consider the breadth of his work and the lack of particularly Catholic themes and, on the contrary, potentially anti-Catholic/Christian stuff he has in it.

Is it a good book?

I liked it

t. someone who liked it

> This erotic fantasy is very deliberately comical and offensive
Wrong.
> He uses the Kabbalah and Tarot to great effect in the ending.
Yeah, and it went way over your head. He's not too fond of it.

By your logic, Dostoevsky agrees with the Grand Inquisitor because he wrote the words he put in his mouth.

You don't get GR at all.

>Jules Siegel said Pynchon went to Mass and confessed.

In 1954 when they attended school together.

It's about a magic crystal that gives you dubs