― 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 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 years ago) link
― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 24 April 2003 11:38 (twenty 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 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
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 years ago) link
My bad.
― ben welsh (benwelsh), Thursday, 7 August 2003 23:18 (twenty years ago) link
― Dan I., Friday, 8 August 2003 01:21 (twenty years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Friday, 8 August 2003 14:18 (twenty years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 8 August 2003 18:11 (twenty years ago) link
FWIW, Sam, I much prefer that other crazy literary recluse guy.
― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 8 August 2003 22:10 (twenty years ago) link
― Fabrice (Fabfunk), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 06:45 (twenty years ago) link
― C J (C J), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 06:52 (twenty years ago) link
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 07:28 (twenty years ago) link
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 07:36 (twenty years ago) link
Where Slothrop gets horny, bombs drop. Now, a study of the Herero.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 14:26 (twenty years 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 (six 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 (six months ago) link
DeLillo has more big spook energy.
― Piedie Gimbel, Friday, 22 September 2023 14:13 (six months ago) link
Libra presumably an expose rather than a speculation
― imago, Friday, 22 September 2023 14:15 (six 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 (six months ago) link
86 I think
― out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve), Friday, 22 September 2023 16:18 (six 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 (six 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 (six 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 (six 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 (six 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 (six months ago) link
that's amazing
― what you say is true but by no means (lukas), Friday, 22 September 2023 22:03 (six 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 (six 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 (six 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 (five months ago) link
Don't forget Harry Mathews
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Thursday, 5 October 2023 21:07 (five months ago) link