Does pic related gets harder later?

Does pic related gets harder later?
The giant adenoid bit was fucking retarded, but the prose is not as difficult to read as everyone says.

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Yeah, I suggest grinding before you move ahead.

Hope you beat this one, user! You'll be a true hardcore reader if you can get gud.

Calm down your memes, this is the first time I'm reading a book on english.

Reread that part after you finish. Reread the whole thing, actually. I'm in the Nabokov camp in that I feel you haven't really read these types of novels until you read them a second time. Gravity's Rainbow was a completely different experience the second time through. Keep pushing through, take it slow. Yes, it gets harder later. You haven't gotten to even one difficult section yet.

I'm almost done and it's the hardest book I've been through. Mody Dick is piss easy compared to this

Ah, very fair then. His prose is not that challenging, necessarily, but Pynchon's ideas are pretty strange and so his plots are supported by this complex or, at least, strange foundation.

i wouldn't say it gets more difficult, but rather certain parts aren't entirely as pleasing as others. all around i have read other more difficult works. also, it depends on whether you think you're really absorbing all the information he's giving you. rooting through all the references is more difficult than the prose, to be sure.

>i have read other more difficult works
Like what? There are parts of this book where Pynchon rambles about I don't know what and your left wondering where you are in the scene he's portraying. And other times where he changes timelines without a single hint and then later drops a tidbit of information that makes you realize you need to read the passage all over again still not completely grasping everything that was said but at least understanding where you are in the narrative. This whole book was the equivalent of walking through a corridor with only the slightest glimmer of light to guide you on your way, however, you don't have the slightest clue what is lurking around you. You just have a vague notion of where you are going.

Quick question.
I'm not a murrican but I want to read Mason & Dixon. Is that a good idea? It sounds like a pretty difficult book for non-muricans.

ulysses was much more difficult. tristram shandy was as well. i can't even deal with that book to be honest. most don't find it difficult but it's one i consider to be more so.

>Does pic related gets harder later?

It was pretty hard until I got the Grasscrest Shield and the Black Knight Halberd +5 Lightning. The adenoid's nothing though, wait till you to Eddie Pensiro and Richard M. Zhlubb -- make the Khirgiz light look like the Kenosha Kid ; )

but.. you never did.

>but the prose is not as difficult to read as everyone says.

I wouldn't call them difficult, just adhd and annoying.

It's hard I wouldn't even attempt to read it until you know Python can run a full marathon and deadlift 600

It's difficult for Americans too. If you understand English then read it in English.

The difficulty of part one is in the huge amount of characters and keeping track of stuff.
Parts two and three are easy and straightforward.
Part four has some difficult sections, but nothing crazy.
Read these summaries after you read a section and you'll be fine.
ottosell.de/pynchon/rainbow.htm

>Black Knight Halberd
>Any Shield
>Shield and Halberd
>together or separately
>ever
I seriously hope you do do this

>And other times where he changes timelines without a single hint and then later drops a tidbit of information that makes you realize you need to read the passage all over again still not completely grasping everything that was said but at least understanding where you are in the narrative.

are you reading a badly-scanned epub? pic related, it's the cover of the physical version i first read, and aside from the bit about the mobile city and Tyrone's father trying to kill him, it made sense to me.

I'm reading this edition, but you couldn't have possibly understood all the references and deviations from the plot. Even Pynchon himself says he doesn't understand sections of it.

here's what you sound like:
>MEME

Explain?

its just a book

k, thanks. I'm good on 2 of 3 requirements.

HINT: I don't know Python...

If he were smart, he'd read it in American.

Halfway into Gravity's Rainbow. It happens that I've read Tristram Shandy right before, and the latter is much easier. I mean, at least Sterne tells you when he's going full sperg on digressions

interestingly enough GR is far easier for me. i guess it just goes to show that difficulty is yet another variable of subjectivity.

You haven't already done the Kenosha Kid, kid

how insightful, user

It starts easily enough in a psychedelic Frank Zappa-esque sense of humour way. It will fuck you up by the time you finish it, OP.

Favourite part: Slothrop eating various unusual English sweets. Being Britbong myself, I could imagine this is how Americans see us when we eat Sherbert lemons, chocolate limes and cola cubes.

>Even Pynchon himself says he doesn't understand sections of it
>guy who doesn't do interviews comments on his own work
Noggin=Joggin

Man I read that part on the subway and I almost bursted out laughing

Just read this section last night. Definitely my favorite part of the book so far.

I also thought the adenoid bit was kind of funny too.

A friend of his from college wrote a piece on his life with Thomas Pynchon and this is what he said, "I was so fucked up while I was writing it... that now I go back over some of those sequences and I can't figure out what I could have meant."

>he's only in part 1

heh . . . better watch your step later kid. And stay out of the Zone. But either way, They will get to you eventually . . .

why would i want to read a book that not even the author understands

you hit the nail on the head with frank zappa. i have made that connection so many times in the last few weeks, reading GR and by turns listening to Zappa in the car. there are moments in GR that are so much like an older more honest brand of humor playing out in a black and white film, so satisfying.

I stopped reading at the part where Richard Mexico and Jessica go to a church on Christmas Eve. Just couldnt take it anymore.

Don't let anyone tell you this book isn't difficult. It's fucking insane. Worthy of meme trilogy status.

Infinite Jest on the other hand can get the fuck out.

i almost stopped there, but kept on, and was rewarded with a more tyrone centered story that made sides blink into the my dimension.
but i understand completely.
infinite jest is just tedious, never felt it to be difficult. should be replaced with the recognitions. not because it's more difficult, but because it's a superior work.

You mean even Pynchon's old friend said he doesn't understand parts.
Also I think the quote was more along the lines of he can't think of what he meant, which could be interpreted as Pynchon not knowing what he intended to accomplish with a passage, not that he didn't understand.
Either way, anything that guy says should be disregarded, because he's an angry nobody cuck who was trying to gain recognition from knowing Pynchon.

That's literally the last section before the easiest, most linear 300 or so pages of the book you stupid fuck.
The main plot was just about to take off on a railroad through fun and easy town.
Part 2 is seriously just Slothrop running around a hotel getting into shenanigans and advancing our understanding of the conspiracy for like 100 pages.
Part 1 is like the slow climb to the roller coaster that is the novel.

how is it after? i'm stalling where slothrop is in the white room waking up after the tchicherine hash scene.

Whatever. My OCD just takes over, I cant take these postmodern novels where it's impossible to picture what's going on I have to understand every word and be able to picture everything in my head when I read a book. I don't want to read delirious abstract nonsense about Dodo hunting or whatever just to get to the few parts where it's intelligible.

it's okay man. you don't have to read it. what are you reading now? i'm reading GR myself, heh. i like it quite a lot but i'm pretty easily distracted.

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, it's my second time through this time reading the HT Lower-Porter translation instead of the Woods one. An incredible book btw it's really one of the essential novels if anyone on Veeky Forums hasn't read it they should.

I thought the metaphor going on there was that of a useless organ rising to great importance and overtaking its host organism is this a difficult reading

You can't upgrade black knight weapons with elemental enhancements though.

There's still a lot of fun ahead. Less easy, but nothing crazy.
There are going to be more side characters taking the spotlight for some sections (you are about to hit a 30 page side characters story that is dope) but the focus is still mostly on Slothrop, and the side characters are easy to follow, not the same disorienting jumping around as part 1.
Part 4 gets a bit weird, but even that isn't too terribly difficult.
I loved GR halfway through, but by the end my love for it doubled. More satisfying sections than the first half, and many passages that are fantastically written.
I thought GR was pretty great at making me see exactly what was happening in any given scene. Though I guess I'm mostly thinking about scenes involving Slothrop that are past the point you got to. Part 1 is like a different book compared to the rest.

see, now i hate Mann! it takes all kinds, yaknow?
well, that makes me incredibly comfy, i must say. thank you kind stranger.

i mean i hated mann before, not now that you said you liked him. heh. that creepy faggot lusting after his sons, i dislike german lit in general though, all dull philosophical bullshit dressed up as fiction. i do like bernhard though.

Oh, I like German lit a lot, but I don't like Bernhard. Guess we just have differing taste

heh, isn't that awesome? i legitimaly think it's great we disagree so much. what do you think of Joyce?

Loved Dubliners and Portrait. Havent got around to Ulysses yet, its pretty low on my priority.

you'll despise it if you hate GR. it's nothing like his earlier work.

Well I wouldn't say I completely hated what I read of GR there are parts that I though were funny but crude (the whole kenosha kid thing) but yeah its definitely not my taste at all. I read the first page of Ulysses at the library and I could already tell that it was way different prose wise than say Dubliners, which is too bad because I though Dubliners had so many beautiful moments. Honestly my taste is pretty antiquated and what maybe some would say regressive but I don't really care. I also care a lot about emotion and the sort of subjective experience the work of art has on you, your feelings and authenticity such which doesn't seem really popular anymore. Though it seems like people are desiring something like that nowadays with the whole anti irony neo-sincerity movement even though I think it's silly and not the right way to go, and also the revival of interest in religion.

i bet you'd like winesburg ohio, silas marner, and all steinbeck.

I'm this guy and yesterday, after a long time, I finally finished it. Who are They? Why many people wanted the 00000?

>Who are They?
I think the best thing about my first readthrough of GR is that I 100%, certainly, belived "They" were real. I never for a moment considered the thought that that it was all paranoia. Which is great, because paranoia is a massive part of the book.

I loved the lightbulb saga.
>I guess he's about to wrap the plot up around now
>oh wait, there's six pages about a sentient lightbulb, cool

The lightbulb is part of Slothrops scattered personaor something. so are those Kamikaze pilots. I think.

I now equate "They" with (((They))) in my mind.

Mostly, GR is straightforward to read and the complexity is overrated. Understand it all is another matter, but not all books can be understood on a first read through anyways.

For complexity it is hardly finnegans wake

I bought GR in my native language, did I fuck up?

You can clearly read English, so read it in English.
If you aren't confident keep the translation and refer to it if you get lost.
Pynchon is a great writer and a lot of what makes him great would probably be muddied in translation.

That's good advice. Heard I should read V first, you think that's relevant?

You don't have to. I read V. after and didn't feel like I would've gained too much by reading it first.
You should still read it as some point though, because it's good too.

cool. Thanks for the advice my man

A bit late but thanks for the recs, I wrote them down. I remember liking of nice and men when we read it in highschool.