so i started gravity's rainbow the other day

leave it as a fucking book for once.

generally, i agree with this sentiment. but i think the narrative of GR is one of the most brilliant and beautifully crafted things i have ever read. i would love to see it in visual form. preferably while pynchon is still alive and is willing to work on it. most likely that will never happen.

there's always the opera, which he technically agreed to

coogan?

x post

He only agreed for the opera if it was entirely scored for kazoo

Banjo, I think.

It is now almost exactly 5 years since I finished this book. I hope it has improved a bit in that time.

Or maybe you have?

I thought it was ukulele; I wonder if the whole story is actually apocryphal.

I am quite impressed that the pinefox finished this book, considering his distaste for it.

more & more I think certain aspects of its reputation are unearned, but also unaimed for � aspects which help it maintain a kind of cachet without helping readers or potential readers read it better, or read anything else

I tend to change my mind twice about whether any novel of P.'s is any good at least twice during the course of a reading. I have decided to reread Against The Day next, but only if I see the American edition somewhere.

Though uke and kazoo are both plausible, according to LA herself it was banjo:

http://www.transmitmedia.com/svr/vault/anderson/ander_transcript.html

Well already I'm very pleased with the nonchalant approach to the absurd evident in Pynchon's writing-style. I've heard it scales astonishing heights of intense and comic intricacy. Sounds fab. Will get on the case as soon as I get home tomorrow.

-- Just got offed, Wednesday, 13 August 2008 17:33 (2 weeks ago) Link

robert downey jr gains 40 pounds and plays slothrop, please

took me like five months but i finally finished it

sounds like it was a chore for you

shit i need to do this

it would probably be in my top 10 favorite books.

congrats max, i couldn't even get all the way through the crying of lot 49 ;_;

lol xp

i read the first 10 pages last summer and they were great...but then i just stopped...i've not been in the habit of reading novels since graduating, and now i actually don't have the time to even if the urge struck

but this in every way sounds like the kind of thing i'd go nuts for

crying of lot 49 is nowhere near as good as GR or M&D or IV imho

I have as yet to finish M&D. I'm not sure why it felt like such a struggle - maybe it was the historical period and subjects it tackled.

no, it wasnt a chore, but the last 150 pages were kind of tough going for me

i was proud of myself for being able to follow what was happening, more or less

<3 V & GR, sorta underwhelmed by crying of lot 49, loathed M&D to the point of never wanting to read any new pynchon ever

erm, even if the urge *strikes*, that should be. anyway after i finish my MA i swear to every mod on ilx that i will read this mfing novel next summer

we will have a parade in your honor, complete with animated penguin gifs

octopus master of ceremonies

anyway max dude you read the best authors, plz be my pending lit guru, i want you to check on my pynchon and nabokov intake come this time next year with all the assiduity of a coroner, que and velko and sarahel can play too

tbh all i really read is "postmodern fiction" and scandinavian crime novels

and hp lovecraft

i'm trying to remember the last novel i read - i think it was The Financier by Theodore Dreisser. It wasn't all that great, but I did learn about puts, calls, short selling, and various other stock market products, that apparently existed in some form even back then.

crying of lot 49 is nowhere near as good as GR or M&D or IV imho

Interesting. I've read L49 and I am observing IV cautiously from afar. Just read an ambiguous review of it (Bookforum) that had to defend its unsatisfactory aspects as really intentional and the whole point.

is richard powers the kinder gentler pynchon? is he a better writer than pynchon?

did you read james wood's review of richard powers?? i think he would disagree w/ you. it was pretty brutal

still haven't read richard powers. and i've had a copy of 'time of our singing' hanging around since, like, 2003.

He's kindler and gentler, but that's about it.

I don't see much similarity at all between Powers and Pynchon other than perhaps that both write long, ambitious novels. Powers is rather literal-minded, sober, respectable - Pynchon is much the opposite with his wild and woolly prose, love of bad puns, shaggy-dog tangents, and general apathy towards the constraints of realism.

what was tough going about the last 150 pages for you? it's tough going for slothrop too, i guess :/

"I don't see much similarity at all between Powers and Pynchon"

both total braniacs that science majors love who write dense "difficult" books and the occasional 250 page "entertainment".

plus, i can never finish books by either one of them.

"Powers is rather literal-minded, sober, respectable"

you should try operation wandering soul. not any of these things. not that i finished it...

first pages of operation wandering soul here:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Operation-Wandering-Soul/Richard-Powers/e/9780060976118#EXC

That review by James Wood stopped me cold.

that's your loss. powers is pretty good, sometimes great.

what do you recc i start with for powers?

That James Wood takedown of Powers is pretty good, but in fairness somebody should link to the recent takedown of Wood.

i think most powers fans would say read galatea 2.2 or the gold bug variations. and i WILL finish operation wandering soul someday. i didn't stop reading it cuz i didn't like it. i forget what happened there...

gain kinda reminded me of steven millhauser a little bit.

"Powers is rather literal-minded, sober, respectable"

you should try operation wandering soul. not any of these things. not that i finished it...

The only Powers I've read is The Echo-Maker, so maybe I'm generalizing too much based on that. I can see how that excerpt of "Operation Wandering Soul" might put one in mind of Pynchon. There's still something subtly different about it, but it's hard to put one's finger on it though. Powers marshals all his literary tricks, scientific knowledge, and dense allusions to give the reader what boils down to a rather literal description of the prosaic act of driving in traffic. At bottom, he's still trying to faithfully describe realistic everyday experience. Whereas I think Pynchon would be more likely to marshal his literary firepower to describe a scene that's patently (and perhaps sophomorically) unrealistic.

ok so this is on my table at home.

Just read the first 20 pages of this in Toronto's Distillery District this weekend. I have six weeks until law school and might try to finish it before classes start.

(My initial goal of Ulysses or Infinite Jest fell by the wayside)

get through the first 200 pages and you're bound to finish it.

Strange to say, I bought a used paperback copy of GR for $1 a few months back, and last night I cracked it open and started it. It was just a taste, after I finished the DFW-interview book by David Lipsky and had a few moments to scrounge around for my next book. Seems ok enough to keep going on it tonight.