This arrives tomorrow. From Pynchon I've only read Inherent Vice and I liked it a lot

Should I read this first if I haven't read Pynchon before? I bought Gravity's Rainbow in a book shop for low dolla

V. is the best Pynchon to start with imo. It's not very difficult compared to his other works and, most importantly, you can go in chronological order

I think he means cringe in the "I'm very uncomfortable and disturbed by this" sense and not the "wow look how awkward and embarrassing this is" way.

I think it's more serious than his others. Pinecone himself seems to like it better than TCoL49, or at least that's the impression I got from the Slow Learner intro. It's my favorite Pynchon.

it's not even particularly disturbing though

I'm usually not bothered by gross descriptions, but I had to put the book down and walk around twice during that chapter.
It's not even super gross, it's just that the humor of the whole book mixed with the weird clinical descriptions of that part makes it so fucking uncomfortable.

A salty and noir like depiction of low class people, one of my favorites.

In general there's a duality in the tone of the book thru the chapters. Profane chapters are more base and humorous whereas Stencil/historic chapters are more serious and refined. For instance the nose job chapter, the apparently infamous one, is dark, sure, but it's dark through the overt specialization of the nose job and the sexual abuse suffered by Esther through her nose job.

A beautiful and captivating book. Confusing as fuck and you probably won't understand everything unless you reread it or watch a review on it or discuss it on lit. Also the rhinoplasty. Just.

>Pig Bodine chasing that cuck guy floor after floor on the outside stairs whilst Hound Dog plays

yes, and reading that discription seemed somehow to be actually worse than seeing a video of it

this. i couldn't really get past it. i guess it's a tribute to the author's skill at rendering horrifying moments. also that virginal woman getting gangbanged was pretty tough to internalize. not as bad as the shifting in the dirt, asking for the bayonet and the pistol.

His best book. I liked it more than Gravity's rainbow. It's really impressive that he was only 25 when it was written

so did it arrive? i'm very interested in this OP

V is pretty straight-forward tbqh. A lot of Pynchonesque elements are there already, but toned down compared to later work.

Make sure to keep track of all the Vs.
Pay attention to inanimate things and their merging with/transformation into the animate (and vice versa).
Politically it's very different to the rest of Pynchon, but this isn't really central.

...

Are there any editions of V. I should avoid?

in the children's abridged edition instead of brutally raping the herero children the germans give them lollipops. there's also an epilogue where it is revealed that v. was the power of friendship all along. these edits are a bit intrusive but the beautiful illustrations make up for it in spades. some very good choices were made in representing all the characters as cute animals. twelve full-page drawings are employed to illustrate the plastic surgery scene in great anatomical detail, which is a curious choice for a children's' edition but i suppose it has some educational value. make sure to read along with your child so you can explain more challenging phrases like "these several minds tended to form a sum total or complex more mongrel than homogeneous".

The Vintage edition should be avoided. Pic related.

The best edition is the Harper Perennial.

This is the Harper. Much crisper text.

It has just arrived, actually.

Thank you all for the replies. I'm really excited.

Which edition did you get?

Sailors drinking beer from some lady's tits

Uhhh, I hope Veeky Forums doesn't throw shit at me for this, but I'll be reading an Spanish translation.

Meaningless psychobabble that pseuds tout as high art.

I dont know anono. Im spanish and I went with the original. I am certain a lot of the charm and funny jokes are going to be lost on a translation.

Id be fine with either. I also don't get why people hate on the "where's waldo" editions

Yeah, started reading it along with the original pdf on my smartphone and right off the bat I can tell the translation is fucking atrocious.

I feel ripped off. I thought Tusquets was one of the best Spanish editorials, but fuck no if they can ship shit like this.

I'd be better off reading the original on pdf I guess.

I will never understand why people do this. You can clearly read and write English, and but you are reading a master's work of prose in a translation despite this.

This is the best edition in print. If you have the cash, this is what I would recommend.

bookdepository.com/V-Thomas-Pynchon/9780060930219

>Pynchon will never write a Western
inb4 Mason & Dixon

Against The Day is like a steampunk western

About 1/3rd of AtD is a western with cowboys, mexicans, saloons, revenge, etc.

Because even English mayors struggle with Pynchon.

kek

Why is that the best one? Because of the text?

yes and paper quality

I get headaches after a while reading the smudgy text.