my professor was making a big deal of talking about signifiers & such during the class, and i kept rolling my eyes. weirdly lots in 49 seems like pomo-critic-bait: driblette's whine "why is everyone so interested in texts?" makes me stop and larf, altho i'm kinda fuzzy as to whether 'texts' had its sense of academic double-meaning in '64, for '49. the book josh mentions - 'lines of flight' - make a lot of the breaking of the frame in the varo triptich, which is kinda interesting. i dunno what the hell to do with this book: reading it as 'exemplary postmodernism' or whatever is a boring dead end, but reading it as a secret-depths-behind-apple-pie-america is just sad. both of these make one hell of a period piece out of it.
(the only way to break the frame of the novel i can see is with its links on either side, to V. and to GR, and maybe from there to something of actual real-world use)
(of course actually reading it, rather than trying to, i guess, take something from it, it somewhat great.)
― tom west (thomp), Saturday, 3 December 2005 02:35 (eighteen years ago) link
the ending of chapter two is the section i am most curious about, for some reason.
― tom west (thomp), Saturday, 3 December 2005 02:37 (eighteen years ago) link
enjoyment is a benefit, isn't it? i don't mean that in the trivial sense either.
― Josh (Josh), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:12 (eighteen years ago) link
you may be right. (i'm not sure my distrust of this book isn't a dislike of a couple general things external to this book, which conflicts with my ability to enjoy the book qua book) (not that this isn't the kind of process involved in interfacing with any kinda entertainartment ever, obviously)
i do like that lines of flight book, despite not being able to follow any of the delueze/guattari* stuff: particularly the fact that it tries to follow "counterculture politics" as a theme through GR is something i am glad of. however i have had to return it to the library after little more than a couple glances at it. oh, hey, d'you have the pynchon notes back issues link to hand?
*how do you pronounce these people, by the way? i have been wondering since more or less forever
― tom west (thomp), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:33 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 3 December 2005 04:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Saturday, 3 December 2005 04:12 (eighteen years ago) link
i have a search function, you know
― Josh (Josh), Saturday, 3 December 2005 06:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― k/l (Ken L), Sunday, 4 December 2005 00:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 4 December 2005 00:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Sunday, 4 December 2005 02:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― the bellefox, Monday, 5 December 2005 15:58 (eighteen years ago) link
& oh hey thanx josh
― tom west (thomp), Monday, 5 December 2005 17:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Monday, 5 December 2005 18:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Monday, 5 December 2005 18:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Monday, 5 December 2005 20:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Monday, 5 December 2005 21:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 5 December 2005 22:26 (eighteen years ago) link
Moby-Dick is back on play. The below-decks stowaways have appeared, to the consternation of many of the crew, and it is the first lowering. There is a reference to samphire, Casuistry. In chapter 46, I think.
― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 04:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― the bellefox, Tuesday, 6 December 2005 21:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 22:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 23:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 23:15 (eighteen years ago) link
we are past forty-nine posts, and no one has made note of this yet.
― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 23:17 (eighteen years ago) link
Also, did you notice that the radio station that Much works at is "FUCK" backwards. This very much shows the sense of humor that Pynchon has and his ability to not take things so seriously.
Now while this has no immediate analysis on the book, I just find them interest tid-bits.
― Guadeleupe, Monday, 6 February 2006 16:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 03:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― Josh (Josh), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 04:43 (eighteen years ago) link
i could be wrong tho
― J. Lamphere (WatchMeJumpStart), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 06:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 11:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 11:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― J. Lamphere (WatchMeJumpStart), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 15:59 (eighteen years ago) link
the prof in my last English class brought up "Oedipa my ass," for what that's worth.
― W i l l (common_person), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 18:35 (eighteen years ago) link
who would NOT notice?
or is it wrong of me to assume that everyone was once an adolescent?
― Josh (Josh), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 02:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 02:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― Josh (Josh), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 03:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― mike h. (mike h.), Friday, 10 February 2006 23:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― mike h. (mike h.), Friday, 10 February 2006 23:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Tuesday, 30 May 2006 10:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 30 May 2006 12:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 30 May 2006 22:47 (seventeen years ago) link
― W i l l (common_person), Saturday, 3 June 2006 17:41 (seventeen years ago) link
How can I learn to appreciate "The Crying of Lot 49"?
― Heave Ho, Saturday, 6 October 2007 11:19 (sixteen years ago) link
get a copy and read it?
― Jaq, Saturday, 6 October 2007 15:48 (sixteen years ago) link
I've read it once, it went over my head.
― Heave Ho, Saturday, 6 October 2007 16:52 (sixteen years ago) link
Wait awhile, then read it again. Read it slowly, read it quickly, read it while waiting in a lawyer's lobby, read it only at stoplights when you are stopped. Wait awhile between each read. Read about it, the opinions of people you admire and people you despise. Tear out an obscure page and saute it in butter. Tear it into pieces with forks, then chew each piece carefully, savoring. Read it without thinking; read it aloud where you can't be heard. Read it while falling asleep and tell yourself to dream its significance. Wake in the night and feel the print on the pages, make out the letters, spell out the words. Copy it out in longhand while listening to the haunting call of the muted posthorn.
― Jaq, Saturday, 6 October 2007 19:10 (sixteen years ago) link
and then start finding "W.A.S.T.E." stamped in weird places.
― Rubyredd, Saturday, 6 October 2007 22:59 (sixteen years ago) link
"I've read it once, it went over my head."
you are not alone.
― Zeno, Saturday, 6 October 2007 23:58 (sixteen years ago) link
i think i would have read it once and been like "i don't get it", but i had to write an essay on it, which made me read it several times. it definitely gets better on multiple readings. also, reading it as a kind of analagy:
The USPS would appear to represent one particular and dominant construction or idea of America, while the W.A.S.T.E. system represents an alternative and subversive representation - a representation of the “excluded middles”. In this story, we can characterise the USPS as a centralised agency, with a streamlined and efficient system of collection and dissemination of information. In opposition, the W.A.S.T.E. service is chaotic, disordered, mysterious, largely unknowable, decentred and without an obvious agency in control. But what the reader comes to realise is that the two systems are in co-existence; neither one of them offers a singular truth, or an overriding master narrative, to describe America. In fact, the two systems represent just how the internet functions: the USPS can be seen as a metaphor for the speed and ease in which global telecommunications technology organises and transmits information, while W.A.S.T.E. symbolises the way in which the reception of that information can be subverted by the receiver. The USPS represents public life, while private life can be seen in the symbol of W.A.S.T.E. The participants of the W.A.S.T.E. system are the “excluded middles” that Decker refers to, and by subverting the USPS system they keep it in check.
― Rubyredd, Sunday, 7 October 2007 00:11 (sixteen years ago) link
One good way to appreciate it is to read some of his other books- then you will appreciate how short it is.
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Tuesday, 9 October 2007 15:37 (sixteen years ago) link
the book crying of lot 49
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Tuesday, 9 October 2007 15:39 (sixteen years ago) link
Funnily enough I don't agree that KVUF is an obvious, um, whatever, rearrangement, of, that other word. I was not really an adolescent as Josh was.
Eddie Mars, I should start writing under that name.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 23 October 2008 11:36 (fifteen years ago) link
No arguments from me, although the truth be told I didn't like crying that much either but it was at least shorter. There was a thread recently about not liking or not finishing books and I resisted the temptation to post about how I stopped reading V with about about five pages left. Reason I stopped was because I figured he wasn't going to explain anything anyway- please don't tell me otherwise-reason I didn't post was because it sort of felt like humblebragging, but I have no such scruple today. Still like that other crying thread.
― Pastel City Slang (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 20 June 2013 11:11 (ten years ago) link
V has its moments and is obviously a harbinger of greater things to come but I don't think back on reading it with much fondness.
Lot 49 is a great novel and I get the feeling people underrate it because its short and relatively zippy, but there's a hell lot going on in there and it feels particularly relevant right now. I would rate it above AtD and on a par with GR (which is unstoppable for its first half but sags in the second half).
― Matt DC, Thursday, 20 June 2013 11:17 (ten years ago) link
Think ppl underrate Crying in part because Pynchon himself dismisses it in the introduction to Slow Learner
― Ward Fowler, Thursday, 20 June 2013 11:20 (ten years ago) link
i've only laid out a lazy position above in response to lj, so i should state that reading crying in one feverish night sitting was one of the most intense and visceral trips of my life, it is imo a great work regardless of before, after or comparisons
― should we bin tapping? (darraghmac), Thursday, 20 June 2013 11:23 (ten years ago) link
I *do* think that TCOL49 would make a HELL of a movie, possibly by Linklater in his rotoscoped A Scanner Darkly mould
― ghosts of cuddlestein butthurt circlejerk zinged fuckboy (imago), Thursday, 20 June 2013 11:32 (ten years ago) link
also, Gravity's Rainbow sags in its second half? dios mio
― ghosts of cuddlestein butthurt circlejerk zinged fuckboy (imago), Thursday, 20 June 2013 11:34 (ten years ago) link
FWIW I think all the big Pynchons have a bit of a dip around 3/4 of the way in and then recover at the end, although none as pronounced as AtD. The section with all the rich kids shagging their way round the Balkans is eminently forgettable.
― Matt DC, Thursday, 20 June 2013 11:39 (ten years ago) link
that's...the best bit*
*the best bit not involving the Chums obv, or the murder of the Italian anarchist, which is one of the best bits in Pynchon (of the 3 1/2 I've read)
AtD only loses me at all with the weird detective potboiler near the end, and even that's kinda fitting as way of uh disappearing Deuce. The Frank Traverse plotline kept threatening to lose me and then kept winning me around, especially him seeing that statue through the window (again, one of the best bits in Pynchon)
― ghosts of cuddlestein butthurt circlejerk zinged fuckboy (imago), Thursday, 20 June 2013 11:45 (ten years ago) link
lol that post 'it's the best bit except this and this and this'
their climactic journey into the East is really amazing IMO
― ghosts of cuddlestein butthurt circlejerk zinged fuckboy (imago), Thursday, 20 June 2013 11:46 (ten years ago) link
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/07/world/europe/princess-gloria-von-thurn-und-taxis-francis.html
Princess Gloria — once christened “Princess TNT” for her explosive years as a hard partying, art-collecting, punk-haired aristocrat — has grown into the sun queen around which many traditionalist Roman Catholics opposed to Pope Francis orbit. Her Regensburg castle is a potential “Gladiator School” for conservative Catholics on a crusade to preserve church traditions.Her Roman palace overlooking the ancient forum is a preferred salon for opposition cardinals, bitter bishops and populists like Stephen K. Bannon. Many of them are hoping to use the sex abuse crisis that amounts to the greatest existential threat to the church in centuries to topple the 81-year-old pontiff, who they are convinced is destroying the faith.
Her Roman palace overlooking the ancient forum is a preferred salon for opposition cardinals, bitter bishops and populists like Stephen K. Bannon. Many of them are hoping to use the sex abuse crisis that amounts to the greatest existential threat to the church in centuries to topple the 81-year-old pontiff, who they are convinced is destroying the faith.
― j., Saturday, 8 December 2018 09:15 (five years ago) link