so i started gravity's rainbow the other day

(Haz - Hazardous Mat - Materials)

ugh. i hated catch 22. i think i have a problem with the late-modernist masculine canon.

Got much less bogged down the second time around - the first time there was definitely too much to take in all at once.

I've read Vineland twice too, and considering rereading M&D pretty soon - again, the sheer density means I probably missed a lot of the nuances first time around.

When I said 'I don't really agree', that meant, largely: 'you like the book and I don't'. I don't think I had very specific points in mind. But I will look and think, about that.

http://www.bookforum.com/pynchon.html

The long Gerald Howard piece is pretty interesting.

I loved all of the little anecdotes sprinkled throughout, like the alliterative restaurant dishes (pubic parfait and whatnot), Benny the Bulb, the boat that magically missed the torpedos, Roger Mexico pissing all over the boardroom and then crawling out under the table, etc. I like how Pynchon maintains a jovial/fantastical feel through most of the book, I don't think it'd be near as great if he was writing a realistic narrative. And has there ever been a more musical book? There was a song every ten pages it seemed

I have to say though that the pedophilia, poop-eating, toilet-diving, etc. made me squirm while I read it and grew somewhat tiresome by the end. I'll probably pick up the commentary book at some point and re-read GR with it, but before I read any more Pynchon, I need a few years off. Phew!

j., though there are places that made me laugh i think of it as closer to, i dunno, reading comic books; most of the gags aim for amusement or wonder, instead of laffs.

the chase scene in the mountain, btw, is where pynchon totally excels at this in GR. by Vineland, it's increasingly how he's doing EVERYTHING.

i like it that pynchon sort of forces me into a sense-driven reading mode precisely b/c it cuts across how i (& probably lots of foax) learned to "appreciate" literature in school.

Wow that's embarassing. I think I've always spelled it like that too. *hangs head in shame*

(compare the moments of terror, fear, etc., in gr to just the set-pieces in v - which leads me to wonder what a comparable list of them might be for gr.)

as per leslie fiedler there is little difference, generically, between sex porn and horror-porn, which is why in particular i was moved to wonder where the horror-porn is in gr (it is clearly locatable in v).

i don't know if that would even satisfy me, though, as far as my question above goes, since that would make for an asymmetry between the horrific and the sex-porn in 'gr', given that the latter is easily localizable to particular encounters, some fantasies.

oboy

i'm halfway through and i'm pretty sure > halfway out of my depth. but it's doing a good job of expanding my imagination, empathy, understanding of how life exists on earth, etc. flattening of time and space, the quintuple zero, mapping of coordinates (in the context of categorized and apposite human destruction) are all combined like a very elaborate and troubled essay of what's going on at the center of human evolution since like the discovery of the printing press. and all those s/m scenes! i really have to ask -- do you people think it's an accurate rep. of berlin sex life? hottt and weirdddddddd. i think he's getting at something else under the surface of that, you know? beyond decadence...

Writing about Oakley Hall the band, I came across Pynchon's original review of the novelist Oakley Hall's Warlock (think he wrote more later), on this good Pynchon archive (which has lots more besides his essays, that's just where I came in)
http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_gift.html

okay, I just finished this...it took me a solid year. I kept having to stop and take breathers, but it was mind-blowing. I feel I must read it again, as I'm sure I've missed a ton of subtext

I'm exactly at that point, too, Morley.

"the smoke of certain afternoons" is such an odd thing to find qualms with.

can one find qualms or just have them?

"October 25: Rocketmen and Wastelands, an essay by Marshall Shord - Shord is a recent graduate of Washington College, Maryland, who won the nation’s largest undergraduate literary prize, the Sophie Kerr Prize, in large part thanks to his 100-page critical thesis on the first three novels of Thomas Pynchon. Shord was awarded a check for almost $56,000 for his scholarly excellence and last we heard he’s been traveling the world. The Modern Word is proud to share the Pynchon paper worth a BMW, which could be characterized as one reader’s personal dialogue with Pynchon’s first three novels."

http://themodernword.com/pynchon/shord.pdf

^thanks for this...v. good reading on a slow day at work.

pers'n'ly i am for thinking it is awful

unfortunately gravity's rainbow has put me in the mood to attack both mason & dixon and against the day but i might hold off for at least another year

i would totally read w/ u, brad

i would much rather read (finish) m&d but i'd do my part for atd too

i'd be down for a group read tbh. too long since i've read pynchon. idk why i even bother to read anything else tbh.

miseducated prolly

I'm jumping into this, but we'll see how far I get. I read V. a few years ago, it had its moments, but didn't make tons of sense to me. So far this is more comprehensible, but I'm sure it won't last.

There are some great, heavily researched guides and supplements online for GR that follow basically page by page. Totally worth it. Really illuminated my reading experience.

One thing I have to say is, at least in my experience, you might be picking up more than you realize. Take those hallucinogenic detours for what they are. Pynchon shoots into space sometimes and you just have to ride it but it always comes back to the ground. Mostly.

Trickiest part for me was remembering the 2,000 or whatever characters. That’s where the guides come in handy.

The first appreciation I've read for Gravity's Rainbow in its 50th anniversary year – many more to come I'm sure. Arguing for Pynchon's relevance but asking – if reality has become as absurd as Pynchon, does that constitute an obstacle to reading him? https://t.co/4mgRk9q32C

— James B (@piercepenniless) February 17, 2023

There are some great, heavily researched guides and supplements online for GR that follow basically page by page. Totally worth it. Really illuminated my reading experience.

I should try that. I've read the book twice, have been contemplating a third read. I think a guide might add something. It did with Ulysses.

Happy 50th birthday!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fp_lwtqXgAMypQK.jpg

hb you amazing fucked-up freak :)

"tussodyne" is a 2023 meme just waiting to unfurl

nice to see Nestlé's original brand name before they went woke

hbtp

having read three copies of this to pieces (original trade paperback w swollen red sun, frank miller penguin classic ew, 70s mass market paperback w rainbow contrails-- this one in many pieces) maybe today is the day to find a copy of that nice earlier penguin w the rocket blueprints on it

...keep hearing thread title in Letterkenny voice...

FIrst read that as "in Lemmy's voice"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99wSTVMRkIk

(6'53" if you don't want to sit through the whole thing)