Thomas Pynchon

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (453 of them)

Also not clear how much of TS sex actually happens, surely?

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:49 (twenty-three years ago)

we've been here before btw: PF doesn't accept that fantasy-as-control is an element in GR

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:52 (twenty-three years ago)

"the pf fails to understand" = "it's not really endless promiscuous post-hippy fantasy sex, it's a scampi platter for £6.95 - I'll bring the condiments over"

― the pinefox, Monday, 9 September 2002 11:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Mmm, yes, I love the section where Floyd Perdoo and Harvey Speed fail to track down TS's conquests and fall prey to watermelons and "the prevailing fondness...for mindless pleasures".

This paper kind of deals with these issues, in a rather-too academic fashion.

This masculinist gigantism can is by no means self-evidently pro-feminist. Gravity's Rainbow often reads like a male fantasy gone out of control: the phalli are a little too large, the female characters too eager to bed down with Slothrop, the victims of sadists far too eager about their own pain.7 And because the narrative doesn't offer final readings, it is never quite clear how much really is mockery or disruption and how much is the residue of real assumptions about gender. These exaggerations self-consciously invite a feminist critique, from an outsider's perspective. But the novel itself does not supply that critique; it can only inflate or dislocate the discourses of its own crimes, and so at once gesture to a newly written self and reduplicate an old and tiresome one.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 9 September 2002 12:21 (twenty-three years ago)

uh oh I fear I have only made things worse.

― Josh (Josh), Monday, 9 September 2002 12:44 (twenty-three years ago)

seven months pass...

We just can't get rid of him!

― the pinefox, Thursday, 24 April 2003 11:29 (twenty-three years ago)

I started reading V last week.

I think it's a good thing that, although I have seen mention of, I have never read about pynchon here.

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 24 April 2003 11:35 (twenty-three years ago)

I gave up on GR yet again right after starting this thread. I reread Lot 49 last month though and I still like it.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 24 April 2003 11:38 (twenty-three years ago)

haha jerry is otm

"well, no, i usually, uh-" this is embarrassing for perdoo, it's like being called on to, to justify eating an apple, or even popping a grape into your mouth- "just, well, sort of, eat them... whole, you know"

― Chip Morningstar (bob), Thursday, 24 April 2003 18:35 (twenty-three years ago)

three months pass...

'I see no place to pin my thoughts' - Richard Butler, 1991

I finished Gravity's Rainbow yesterday. I wondered exactly how to express my reaction, or opinion. The more I wondered, the more my reactions threatened, or promised, to alter.

I shouldn't exaggerate that last point, though.

Some day I would like to take, or make, some room to say, and possibly also discover, some of what I think of the book.

― the pinefox, Thursday, 7 August 2003 15:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Has anyone seen A Journey into the Mind of P? Did you thole the whole screening?

― David. (Cozen), Thursday, 7 August 2003 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I love how this thread is all guys.

― Texas Sam (thatgirl), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I love how gals do the meta.

― nestmanso (nestmanso), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:08 (twenty-two years ago)

is isadora a guy's name?

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Haha, Sam. Er. Well, I just started reading V last week. Odd, I remember a thread from a couple months ago where several folks sang its praises. It's the origin of Hstencil's name, for crying out loud! So far, I like the stuff set in the present [1956] with the Whole Sick Crew, but am having a tough time following all the international espionage subplots.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:10 (twenty-two years ago)

(one post from a chick still = all guy thread)

Depsite much pynchon-love coming from Joel and other people I think highly of, I just can't get into Pynchon.

― Texas Sam (thatgirl), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:12 (twenty-two years ago)

still not 'all guys' tho', just mostly guys :-)

Have read crying a couple of times and enjoyed it lots. I'm thinking its a cousin to PKD's 'Three stigmata of palmer eldritch' so that means its great.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:14 (twenty-two years ago)

I still haven't finished another novel since finishing GR (excepting airport bookstall no-brainer type things). The PF's latest comment struck a chord.

― Jeff W (zebedee), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Hello Julio, PEDANTIC POLICE!

― Texas Sam (thatgirl), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Wow, pretty gurls, music, comics and Pynchon. I'm having quite a morning on ILE.

― Leee (Leee), Thursday, 7 August 2003 18:00 (twenty-two years ago)

What ya think about the collection of early short stories called "Slow Learner?"

I was shocked by how conventional they are. I didn't like 'Atrophy' that much despite its reputation and really dug that one about the guy who runs off with the garbage man.

― ben welsh (benwelsh), Thursday, 7 August 2003 23:12 (twenty-two years ago)

err, it's "Entropy."

My bad.

― ben welsh (benwelsh), Thursday, 7 August 2003 23:18 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm on my second way through GR, and it's pretty incredible the amount of stuff I managed to miss the first time through. Like the fact that Katje-as-dominatrix was being employed by Pointsman in order to manipulate Pudding. Like, duh. The first time I must have thought she was just Pudding's imagination or something? Anyway, lots of stuff like that.

― Dan I., Friday, 8 August 2003 01:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Slow Learner is pretty dull - the title says it pretty well. I'm a fan of the first three novels, but I do think there's something a little creepy about the weird prevalence of masochistic, sexually-promiscuous, pre-pubescent nymphets.

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 8 August 2003 14:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, the earliest stories in SL barely show promise even in retrospect.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 8 August 2003 18:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Awww, one of my goals this summer was to finally read GR and I forgot!

FWIW, Sam, I much prefer that other crazy literary recluse guy.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 8 August 2003 22:10 (twenty-two years ago)

one month passes...

I'm now around p. 100 of V (deep into the whole Egyptian flashback thingy) and really wondering whether it's worth continuing.. Like Jaymc upthread, I like the 1956 Stencil/V-hunting plot but I fear it is not going to go anywhere.. Any insight?

― Fabrice (Fabfunk), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 06:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I tried to read GR this summer too - and it made my head hurt. I love his use of language, but I just couldn't get into the book at all, with all the dotting about it does. I couldn't seem to follow what was happening. I must be v. thick. Can someone give me a very brief synopsis to help me through?

― C J (C J), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 06:52 (twenty-two years ago)

You want a BRIEF synopsis? No can do, sorry.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 07:28 (twenty-two years ago)

There used to be a very good one on the net somewhere, which I used as a memory aid (lets face it, if you can keep track of every character you are a better man than I), but it appears to have vanished. There's bound to be something useful on the Modern World's Pynchon page, mind.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 07:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Can someone give me a very brief synopsis to help me through?

Where Slothrop gets horny, bombs drop. Now, a study of the Herero.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 14:26 (twenty-two years ago)

It's a folly.

That may contain the germ of a defence, as well as the outline of a rejection.

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 24 September 2003 14:30 (twenty-two years ago)

don't worry about plot and action so much the first time you read it, just absorb what you can. if you really want to dig deeper, read it again using that book "A Guide to" or something, someone did annotation for the whole thing that really illuminate the symbolic and historical references. I've read it three times though and i'd be hard pressed to do a synopsis of the thing (it's been a while since I picked it up though).

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 15:28 (twenty-two years ago)

I suggest a reading strategy, sort of in two modes. The first is the Slothrop storyline. Just get the basic gist that he's paranoid as hell and is trying to get to the bottom of his bombastic boners while evading his putative pursuers.

The second is to look at all other sections as self-contained -- like an obliquely connected collection of short stories.

To understand how it all connects, let x represent the number of times you read it. Then let x approach infinity.

― Leee (Leee), Thursday, 25 September 2003 04:11 (twenty-two years ago)

read it like a generalized investegation into the nature of the rocket as a way of sketching a prehistory of the "hot" period of the cold war.

alt. as a set of symbol systems (zodiac tarot jungian etc.) mapped onto one another and an investigation into the moralism of ways of knowing and meaning.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 25 September 2003 04:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Thank you everyone - this has been very helpful. Leee's suggestion of looking at it as a series of obliquely connected short stories is the way to go, I think. Part of the reason I was getting frustrated with it was the fact it didn't seem to 'flow', and by the time a chapter came back to pick up a particular storyline again, I had forgotten where I was. I felt as though, mentally, I was having to behave like one of those Chinese plate spinners, keeping everything going at once.

Another problem I have is that I tend to read very quickly - sometimes skim-reading - and that's just not something you can do with GR, is it?!

I'm going back to it again this weekend, to start from the beginning again. Wish me luck!

― C J (C J), Thursday, 25 September 2003 04:55 (twenty-two years ago)

so what about V.??

― Fabrice (Fabfunk), Thursday, 25 September 2003 06:17 (twenty-two years ago)

read it as a parable about modernity -- arid or overheated.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 26 September 2003 03:44 (twenty-two years ago)

ten months pass...

so, i started V today...

― david acid (gareth), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 09:17 (twenty-one years ago)

It's almost very kind of good!

― Mr. Tony Plow (Leee), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 21:52 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

ok, so, i want to look clever and need a quote from 'v'. my memory is that there's a thing about "the centre of things" -- ie a recurring line, an important thing, everyone wants to be there. but anyway i googled the phrase and got nothing. am i just paraphrasing?

― the Enrique who acts like some kind of good taste gestapo (Enrique), Monday, 8 May 2006 10:52 (twenty years ago)

dead center, 22, 44; center of "one of those queer lulls in the noise level of any room," 93; "center of her face," 109; center of town, 188, 207; "I wanted to stand in the dead center of the carousel," 205; "geographical center of the midtown employment agency belt." 213; "self-centered," 214; "a great wooden sun [...] in the very center," 239; "street's center-line," 244; "down the center-line of the skull," 268; "new ones bloom in the centres of old" 323; "Profane felt that [...] he'd come to dead center in Nueva York;" 368; of gravity, 390; "nine light years from rim to center," 394; of the seat, 394; "Itague stood in the center," 396; "a large pouf in the center of the room," 406; "center of the mob," 440; "center of the ceiling," 453; "circle centered at Xaghriet Mewwija," 462; "In the center was a cistern, its rim adorned with a dark sunburst of sewage." 469

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 8 May 2006 11:03 (twenty years ago)

From A V concordance

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 8 May 2006 11:04 (twenty years ago)

i haven't read v, but i HEART lot 49.

― The Lex (The Lex), Monday, 8 May 2006 11:04 (twenty years ago)

I searched "center", rather than "centre", remembering that thomas pynchon is an american person

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 8 May 2006 11:06 (twenty years ago)

ihttp://mots.extraits.free.fr/thomas_pynchon1.jpg

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 8 May 2006 11:06 (twenty years ago)

The band Thrice has released their fifth album, entitled "Vheissu," which is the result of the band's singer, Dustin Kensrue, being blown away by Pynchon's first novel V. He had the entire band read the novel from cover to cover before recording the album.

Oh dear God

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 8 May 2006 11:11 (twenty years ago)

I assume he taught them all to read first.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 8 May 2006 11:37 (twenty years ago)

Well, that metal album about "Moby-Dick" was pretty good.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Monday, 8 May 2006 11:46 (twenty years ago)

i appear to have made up the quote and it was years ago that i read it -- but would it be fair to say that one of the main themes of 'v' is the attraction of/impossibility of reaching "the center"?

― the Enrique who acts like some kind of good taste gestapo (Enrique), Monday, 8 May 2006 12:15 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 353 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Yeah, I'm beginning to think he'll get the big prize in a couple of hours. This fall is his fall.

― Frederik B, Thursday, 9 October 2025 09:26 (seven months ago)

ah Lazlo got it

― a (waterface), Thursday, 9 October 2025 12:34 (seven months ago)

at least Tom's latest ends up in Hungary

2scoops as Bruno "Al Capone of Cheese" Airmont

― reggie (qualmsley), Thursday, 9 October 2025 20:45 (seven months ago)

Just got to the chapter where Stuffy vanishes on the mysterious U-boat and already enjoying this more than any Pynchon joint since Mason & Dixon. Have also relished the wiki detours through the careers of Goldwyn Girl Toby Wing, Hungarian grandmaster Arpad Elo and the young Les Paul.

― Piedie Gimbel, Saturday, 11 October 2025 15:31 (seven months ago)

Loving it so far

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, 11 October 2025 16:00 (seven months ago)

i struggled with the difficulty of the prose. i lost the thread of some sentences. some paragraph structures were arranged in a convoluted way, with a logic i couldn’t grasp

I think of myself as a bright person but whenever I need a reminder that I'm not that bright I remember that I can't read Pynchon

― corrs unplugged, Monday, 13 October 2025 06:43 (seven months ago)

I was wondering if he mimics a kind of German-American syntax in this one? There were sentences that seemed wrong to me in English, but made more sense if I translated them directly into Danish.

― Frederik B, Monday, 13 October 2025 07:24 (seven months ago)

The regional references are so deep, in particular card game Sheepshead, which I played a ton of the one year I went to college in Wisconsin, a game I've never heard of or seen played before or since, very unique and odd rules, I guess maybe Buck Euchre meets Hearts but at the same time way different, I've forgotten most of it other than there was a predetermined hierarchy of suits and I believe jacks were Bowers like in Euchre

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 16 October 2025 00:22 (seven months ago)

I learned Euchre in Indiana, yeah

― sleeve, Thursday, 16 October 2025 00:34 (seven months ago)

shadow docket

― reggie (qualmsley), Friday, 17 October 2025 20:18 (seven months ago)

two weeks pass...

Finished Shadow Ticket last night and really dug it, definitely more than Bleeding Edge and a second reading might reveal more than Inherent Vice too.

― better than ezra collective soul asylum (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 6 November 2025 21:34 (seven months ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.