oh, umm, classic, anyway.
― toby, Sunday, 26 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Queen G of the Arctic Nile, Sunday, 26 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore, Sunday, 26 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 26 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
I don't think I've ever reread a book. Is there enough time? I'd worry too much about the stuff that I was missing out on.
― Mike Ratford, Sunday, 26 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Gordon, Sunday, 26 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Now---
― Leee, Monday, 27 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Norman Phay, Monday, 27 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 28 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Alan T, Tuesday, 28 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Took me 2 and a half years to get through GR. Bits of it were brilliant, bits of it were impenetrable. I persevered, but haven't managed to finish another novel since. I think it killed fiction as an enjoyable pasttime for me.
― Jeff W, Tuesday, 28 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― N., Tuesday, 28 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Dan Perry, Tuesday, 28 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 28 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 28 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― the pinefox, Sunday, 8 September 2002 12:19 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark p (Mark P), Sunday, 8 September 2002 12:23 (twenty-one years ago) link
The Pinefox, do you like any PoMo fiction? I know you are a big Joyce fan (haha though a pal of mine wrote his thesis on Blake and has found him unreadable since, so maybe I'm wrong), and I have known some fans of Modernism's peaks who really dislike anything that's very Postmodern.
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 8 September 2002 12:54 (twenty-one years ago) link
In general I don't like talking about things as PoMo; if I loved anything I would probably not call it PoMo. Nonetheless, there are some things that might get called PoMo that I like. I have a lot of time for CL49, and a lot of respect for DeLillo. I like at least a bit of Barth, though I am yet to be fully convinced re. the vaunted Barthelme. But you may be meaning sth much more way-out than that.
― the pinefox, Sunday, 8 September 2002 14:35 (twenty-one years ago) link
Although the line between Modernism and Postmodernism is hard to draw (Beckett is a rewarding study here, I think), there is an important difference in the attitude towards meaning, in particular. I've found that some admirers of the former are annoyed and frustrated by what they see as frivolity and emptiness in much PoMo fiction, in its abandonment of the search for and belief in suitable new metanarratives - I'm wondering if that might be how you feel, because combining that with Pynchon's encyclopaedic ambition and scale (partucularly in GR) might exacerbate the annoyance that might cause.
I think there is a smugness to Pynchon's writing too, something I see in quite a few writers of (more or less) his generation, a former-hippy-youth's overconfidence in the rightness of their reading of the world, particularly in ideological terms - it's an impression that has turned me away from Tom Robbins, for instance, who I used to really like a lot. Barth has some of this, but his obvious idolising of great past storytellers, an almost fannish, childlike adoration of and reverence for paradigms such as Homer and Scheherezade, soften that hugely, for me. Anyway, I mention that about Pynchon because these things, particularly in combination, might easily cause a very serious-minded Modernist to feel exactly what you expressed in your "awkwardly pretentious and horribly obnoxious" comment upthread.
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 8 September 2002 14:51 (twenty-one years ago) link
this is a long term deal and more to my benefit obv. ha
― Josh (Josh), Monday, 9 September 2002 03:07 (twenty-one years ago) link
Martin S: one (main?) thing I don't like about GR = too much sex. As I have said before, GR = post-hippy James Bond [etc etc, as I have said before, etc etc].
I think Pynchon can Write but I don't think I feel the gain in his relative unclarity.
― the pinefox, Monday, 9 September 2002 07:01 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 9 September 2002 07:50 (twenty-one years ago) link
― the pinefox, Monday, 9 September 2002 07:53 (twenty-one years ago) link
yeah, other people who get it on in gr: roger and jessica, pirate and scorpia mossmoon, katje and blicero and what's his name, katje and BRIGADIER PUDDING even jesus, enzian and blicero, a bunch of people on thanatz's yacht, er leni pokler a bit I think (but does FRANZ POKLER ever get any? hmm), and uh...
of course all along (many of those happen sort of episodically), slothrop keeps on having secret agent sex after the london part of the book is over: katje, geli tripping, the actress, the girl on thanatz's yacht, trudi and whatsername at saure's place, and I'm sure there are more. plus he has uh amorous encounters with more people, incl some girls at the hermann goering, the spa where marvy chases him, the red cross girl or whoever, the PIG briefly...
― Josh (Josh), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:35 (twenty-one years ago) link
― the pinefox, Monday, 9 September 2002 11:46 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:47 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:49 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:52 (twenty-one years ago) link
― the pinefox, Monday, 9 September 2002 11:53 (twenty-one years ago) link
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-one years ago) link
― Josh (Josh), Monday, 9 September 2002 12:44 (twenty-one years ago) link
― the pinefox, Thursday, 24 April 2003 11:29 (twenty-one years ago) link
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-one years ago) link
― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 24 April 2003 11:38 (twenty-one years ago) link
"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-one years ago) link
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 years ago) link
― David. (Cozen), Thursday, 7 August 2003 16:16 (twenty years ago) link
― Texas Sam (thatgirl), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:01 (twenty years ago) link
― nestmanso (nestmanso), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:08 (twenty years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:08 (twenty years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:10 (twenty years ago) link
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 years ago) link
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 years ago) link
― Jeff W (zebedee), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:16 (twenty years ago) link
― Texas Sam (thatgirl), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:17 (twenty years ago) link
― Leee (Leee), Thursday, 7 August 2003 18:00 (twenty years ago) link
Someone deceived me. Thomas Pynchon is alive and well. I apologize.— Louise Glück (@PoetLouiseGluck) February 16, 2021
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 16 February 2021 23:49 (three years ago) link
^^^this better still be so
― mark s, Friday, 30 September 2022 09:48 (one year ago) link
meanwhile checking in on my reread-it-all ratings:
i actually spoiled GR for myself by doing too mch back-reading (maybe also by rereading it too often): it's probably now slipped right down to my list least favourite still always V. (which is just too beat generation for me) i'd need to reread the last three for this to be definitive (AtD took me ten years -- with several interruptions and restarts) but i think my current order is M&RAtD VL BEIV --- need to reread this as the actual sequel to VL GRCL49V― mark s, Saturday, 19 November 2016 00:19 (five years ago) bookmarkflagline
least favourite still always V. (which is just too beat generation for me)
i'd need to reread the last three for this to be definitive (AtD took me ten years -- with several interruptions and restarts) but i think my current order is
M&RAtD VL BEIV --- need to reread this as the actual sequel to VL GRCL49V
― mark s, Saturday, 19 November 2016 00:19 (five years ago) bookmarkflagline
AtD: currently my favourite, tho this always kinda just means the one i read most recently M&D: i think his best and deepest -- i love that it's abt america just before the revolution (he must have just shouted w/glee when he discovered in pre-novel research that one of M&D stayed in the UK and one emigrated) (tracer tells me THE SOTWEED FACTOR is also abt america just before the revolution, so i guess i shd read that VL: very fond of this, it's the one where he learnt to do affection between characters and i prefer him like that -- tho it leaves brock vond a weak reed (like he forgot how to do villains) BE: getting a raw deal here -- his "novels of times as they are now" (this, VL and CoL49) are always full of alert observation, and i think there's tons here that's (a) accurate and (b) not in any other novels -- need to reread, maybe disenchantment will kick in (ie my allergy to cyberpunk -- as i was reading it i was thinking "i much prefer this to gibson") IV: re the film (which i liked) even quite smart ppl seem to go with "who needs another big lebowski?" -- well i hate big lebowski, who needs even one, IV isn't a bit like it… book is lowish mainly bcz i'm a tiny bit allergic to marlowism GR: putting it here looks challopsy -- and i think you can find me raving abt it on early ilx (s.clover will remember) -- but i honestly read this once too many times (8 or 9) and just have no will to, again; this surprised me too (it has great set-pieces of course) CoL49: superb as a second novel by a young writer, several great set-pieces and startling ideas*, like VL and BE a "novel of times as they are now" (fun to read alongside didion) but his inexperience sentence-making shows now and then, several of the characters don't really work (for example the paranoids), and i always felt tripped up and let down by its brevity V.: a handful of scenes i still remember from reading it first and only time c.1981, but i also have an allergy (much larger this time) to beatnikery and this i remember as rancid with it >:( never tried to reread it, i know i probably should SL: bleh, there's really nothing much here (his intro essay is quite funny) *the man's face on the stamp transfixed with fright and horror― mark s, Wednesday, 12 April 2017 22:49 (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink
*the man's face on the stamp transfixed with fright and horror
― mark s, Wednesday, 12 April 2017 22:49 (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink
not much to add: i did actually start a (tenth?) GR reread a couple years back and this time beached but i think that was mainly pandemic depression: i hardly managed to read anything in 2020 or 2021 -- my impression (i was trying a superclose read for once where i actually decode everyt sentence instead of just skipping it) is that i'm not as smart as i was when i first read it or else just less inclined to believe my own bullshit lol. i think -- since ppl were discussing it on the novels-unfinished thread -- that despite being short CL49 is one of the tougher TPs, partly bcz his attitude to the characters is at best enigmatic (if he loves em he's not showing it). maybe BB is overranked here? -- but i was unpersuaded by much of the critical disappointment (dudes he always gets that). anyway i shd reread; and AtD also of course
― mark s, Friday, 30 September 2022 09:57 (one year ago) link
Glad to see some Bleeding Edge appreciation on here.
― I am using your worlds, Friday, 30 September 2022 10:09 (one year ago) link
I have less than 50 pages to go in AtD. Love some parts (beginning, Colorado sections) and feel blessed to have 1100 pages of Pynchon, but it is overstuffed. M&D remains #1 for me.
― i need to put some clouds behind the reaper (PBKR), Friday, 30 September 2022 12:51 (one year ago) link
not! long! enough!
(it took me ten years to finish)
― mark s, Friday, 30 September 2022 13:17 (one year ago) link
did we know that his full name is "Thomas Ruggles Pynchon"
― Critique of the Goth Programme (Neil S), Friday, 30 September 2022 13:33 (one year ago) link
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr.
― mizzell, Friday, 30 September 2022 13:57 (one year ago) link
👍
― Critique of the Goth Programme (Neil S), Friday, 30 September 2022 14:04 (one year ago) link
Surprised to see the low rating for Slow Learner - I think The Secret Integration is one of the loveliest things he ever wrote.
Shamefully as a dedicated TRP fanboi I am still not even halfway through Against the Day ;_;
― Piedie Gimbel, Friday, 30 September 2022 14:27 (one year ago) link
I had seen his full name before because I have read his wikipedia page many times, but I don't think I ever followed the link to his ancestor William Pynchon, and saw the Pynchon coat of armshttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/45/COA_William_Pynchon.svg/800px-COA_William_Pynchon.svg.png
― mizzell, Friday, 30 September 2022 14:30 (one year ago) link
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EoGaSWzWMAYFCK0.jpg
― mark s, Friday, 30 September 2022 14:47 (one year ago) link
This would be a fun Nobel Prize surprise.
― The self-titled drags (Eazy), Friday, 30 September 2022 15:57 (one year ago) link
also, it is so so so West Coast, I love that about it― sleeve
― sleeve
― dow, Friday, 30 September 2022 17:10 (one year ago) link
Maximalism’s Big Daddy. His novels, in which entropy reigns supreme, are dense and complex and uncover the murky and incongruous mechanics of life, but without providing a single answer. Authors like him only come once in a lifetime. Award the 2022 Nobel Prize to Thomas Pynchon. pic.twitter.com/2BVzmoNJTA— Luis Panini (@TheLuisPanini) October 3, 2022
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 3 October 2022 22:03 (one year ago) link
Hey take it over to the Great Real Names thread, M. Panini!
― Misirlou Sunset (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 3 October 2022 22:04 (one year ago) link
A game on this site was trying to find an author who was as wild as Pynchon. I really liked this piece of Laiseca, the novel hasn't been translated but it does sound wild.
https://www.asymptotejournal.com/special-feature/manuel-antonio-castro-cordoba-on-laiseca/
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 18 November 2022 16:41 (one year ago) link
I read Mason & Dixon this year and it was lovely
― G. D’Arcy Cheesewright (silby), Friday, 18 November 2022 17:30 (one year ago) link
Yah!
xyzzzz, thanks for that link. The description of Laiseca sounds so much like Pynchon! Very interesting and now I want to read it but don't speak or read spanish :(
― The Bankruptcy of the Planet of the Apes (PBKR), Friday, 18 November 2022 18:14 (one year ago) link
Quite a few ambitious works are being translated btw. This is out Match next year.
https://dalkeyarchive.store/products/the-garden-of-seven-twilights
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 20 November 2022 16:57 (one year ago) link
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2022-12-14/the-huntington-library-acquires-papers-of-thomas-pynchon
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 14 December 2022 23:30 (one year ago) link
Huntington Library is an awesome place and perfect for Pynchon. Really interesting that the archive will include his research materials - could be illuminating.
― The Bankruptcy of the Planet of the Apes (PBKR), Thursday, 15 December 2022 01:13 (one year ago) link
love this. huntington really is the right place.
― poster of sparks (rogermexico.), Thursday, 15 December 2022 20:35 (one year ago) link
A few have talked about Solenoid as the highly ambitious work on a Pynchonesque scale. Eng translation has been issued. I will have a go at it.
Mircea Cărtărescu’s “brilliant, clear and disquieting prose….fills you quite immediately with a desire to explore a world that seems to be collapsing”Read @SaraheKornfeld’s full review of “Solenoid” (tr. Sean Cotter) here:https://t.co/crAUuYGybV@DeepVellum #LARreviews pic.twitter.com/Bg47GMSW7L— Los Angeles Review (@LAReview) December 14, 2022
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 16 December 2022 12:02 (one year ago) link
Lovely news to see indeed -- Pynchon and Butler, what a combo alone!
― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 17 December 2022 00:06 (one year ago) link
The best novel ever written by an ex-CIA operative (unless Pynchon is ex-CIA, which he might be).— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) September 22, 2023
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 22 September 2023 13:42 (seven months ago) link
If he was, it surely only served to sharpen his criticism of historical and contemporary US foreign policy
― imago, Friday, 22 September 2023 13:46 (seven months ago) link
DeLillo has more big spook energy.
― Piedie Gimbel, Friday, 22 September 2023 14:13 (seven months ago) link
Libra presumably an expose rather than a speculation
― imago, Friday, 22 September 2023 14:15 (seven months ago) link
whenever this thread is revived I worry that he's dead. how old is he by now anyway?
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Friday, 22 September 2023 16:17 (seven months ago) link
86 I think
― out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve), Friday, 22 September 2023 16:18 (seven months ago) link
there's a signed edition of Mason and Dixon on Ebay for $24k.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/274765041981?hash=item3ff945d13d:g:B7oAAOSwQWBdfQkd&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4NQNcS8Q0SfQmzO0180rdkEA3JX4lSWkw5TA7yzzANIQk8pUsHcXQs8FzKvlDWMLPHJePYglAPUC093VvGVN68JYxmebKgweiZ8Nbcw5r5XNmSffetYZxis45gH8G%2FfrPxRsxto3SCtzlSp1kA%2FFtpyf5Q0241JFXIjigK74en2DIdcCmj2hJ0zoRKRw6G%2Fvc7pfVR3LWO0QInO5m7tckigFGMBRoe2cUdDELt0miJWdXDFcNtpPjIsrD5S4PqlPUjKYygYfT%2B1sHP0efqct3wR4Yr3Y5amrbKlkoeg3pOqf%7Ctkp%3ABlBMUOq9tu3XYg
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Friday, 22 September 2023 21:41 (seven months ago) link
I’ve seen signed Salinger and Pynchon titles go for between $10k and $30k. You can see some more on Abebooks
― beamish13, Friday, 22 September 2023 21:49 (seven months ago) link
He's actually been dead since 1974. The books written by "Thomas Pynchon" after that point have actually been written by Irwin Corey.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 22 September 2023 21:51 (seven months ago) link
i've held on to a signed Infinite Jest first edition in the hope that it would hit those heights but alas they seem to go for around 4k; he's dead but he wasn't exactly a recluse. If I don't get a job at some point I'll probably have to let it go.
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Friday, 22 September 2023 21:52 (seven months ago) link
i found a hilarious reddit thread from a european investigator who followed old men all over new york wondering if they were pynchon. he may or may not have snapped a picture of the back of him going into the building they confirmed as a residence of pynchon's wife. I just like to imagine old guys in NY getting accosted by a swede asking "are you thomas pynchon?" and their bewildered eyes
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Friday, 22 September 2023 21:55 (seven months ago) link
that's amazing
― what you say is true but by no means (lukas), Friday, 22 September 2023 22:03 (seven months ago) link
I vaguely know Elvis Buñuelo and I read *Mating* at his behest. Amazing novel.
― I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Friday, 22 September 2023 22:34 (seven months ago) link
xxxpost best novel by an ex-CIA agent: might be those by pen names ov Paul Linebarger, though I haven't yet read any (though omg the shorter fiction)
― dow, Friday, 22 September 2023 23:10 (seven months ago) link
re: Linebarger, the short fiction is amazing and stands up today. if anything only more prescient on e.g. animal liberation. nonfictionwise, Psychological Warfare is sitting on my desk but I haven't cracked it yet.
best by ex-CIA probably deserves its own thread. Frank Herbert seems obvious but afaict he genuinely was not affiliated.
― poster of sparks (rogermexico.), Thursday, 5 October 2023 19:25 (seven months ago) link
Don't forget Harry Mathews
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Thursday, 5 October 2023 21:07 (seven months ago) link