Thomas Pynchon

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Has anyone seen A Journey into the Mind of P? Did you thole the whole screening?

― David. (Cozen), Thursday, 7 August 2003 16:16 (twenty years ago) link

I love how this thread is all guys.

― Texas Sam (thatgirl), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:01 (twenty years ago) link

I love how gals do the meta.

― nestmanso (nestmanso), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:08 (twenty years ago) link

is isadora a guy's name?

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:08 (twenty years ago) link

Haha, Sam. Er. Well, I just started reading V last week. Odd, I remember a thread from a couple months ago where several folks sang its praises. It's the origin of Hstencil's name, for crying out loud! So far, I like the stuff set in the present [1956] with the Whole Sick Crew, but am having a tough time following all the international espionage subplots.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:10 (twenty years ago) link

(one post from a chick still = all guy thread)

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

still not 'all guys' tho', just mostly guys :-)

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

I still haven't finished another novel since finishing GR (excepting airport bookstall no-brainer type things). The PF's latest comment struck a chord.

― Jeff W (zebedee), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:16 (twenty years ago) link

Hello Julio, PEDANTIC POLICE!

― Texas Sam (thatgirl), Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:17 (twenty years ago) link

Wow, pretty gurls, music, comics and Pynchon. I'm having quite a morning on ILE.

― Leee (Leee), Thursday, 7 August 2003 18:00 (twenty years ago) link

What ya think about the collection of early short stories called "Slow Learner?"

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

err, it's "Entropy."

My bad.

― ben welsh (benwelsh), Thursday, 7 August 2003 23:18 (twenty years ago) link

I'm on my second way through GR, and it's pretty incredible the amount of stuff I managed to miss the first time through. Like the fact that Katje-as-dominatrix was being employed by Pointsman in order to manipulate Pudding. Like, duh. The first time I must have thought she was just Pudding's imagination or something? Anyway, lots of stuff like that.

― Dan I., Friday, 8 August 2003 01:21 (twenty years ago) link

Slow Learner is pretty dull - the title says it pretty well. I'm a fan of the first three novels, but I do think there's something a little creepy about the weird prevalence of masochistic, sexually-promiscuous, pre-pubescent nymphets.

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 8 August 2003 14:18 (twenty years ago) link

Yeah, the earliest stories in SL barely show promise even in retrospect.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 8 August 2003 18:11 (twenty years ago) link

Awww, one of my goals this summer was to finally read GR and I forgot!

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

one month passes...

I'm now around p. 100 of V (deep into the whole Egyptian flashback thingy) and really wondering whether it's worth continuing.. Like Jaymc upthread, I like the 1956 Stencil/V-hunting plot but I fear it is not going to go anywhere.. Any insight?

― Fabrice (Fabfunk), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 06:45 (twenty years ago) link

I tried to read GR this summer too - and it made my head hurt. I love his use of language, but I just couldn't get into the book at all, with all the dotting about it does. I couldn't seem to follow what was happening. I must be v. thick. Can someone give me a very brief synopsis to help me through?

― C J (C J), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 06:52 (twenty years ago) link

You want a BRIEF synopsis? No can do, sorry.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 07:28 (twenty years ago) link

There used to be a very good one on the net somewhere, which I used as a memory aid (lets face it, if you can keep track of every character you are a better man than I), but it appears to have vanished. There's bound to be something useful on the Modern World's Pynchon page, mind.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 07:36 (twenty years ago) link

Can someone give me a very brief synopsis to help me through?

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

It's a folly.

That may contain the germ of a defence, as well as the outline of a rejection.

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 24 September 2003 14:30 (twenty years ago) link

don't worry about plot and action so much the first time you read it, just absorb what you can. if you really want to dig deeper, read it again using that book "A Guide to" or something, someone did annotation for the whole thing that really illuminate the symbolic and historical references. I've read it three times though and i'd be hard pressed to do a synopsis of the thing (it's been a while since I picked it up though).

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 15:28 (twenty years ago) link

I suggest a reading strategy, sort of in two modes. The first is the Slothrop storyline. Just get the basic gist that he's paranoid as hell and is trying to get to the bottom of his bombastic boners while evading his putative pursuers.

The second is to look at all other sections as self-contained -- like an obliquely connected collection of short stories.

To understand how it all connects, let x represent the number of times you read it. Then let x approach infinity.

― Leee (Leee), Thursday, 25 September 2003 04:11 (twenty years ago) link

read it like a generalized investegation into the nature of the rocket as a way of sketching a prehistory of the "hot" period of the cold war.

alt. as a set of symbol systems (zodiac tarot jungian etc.) mapped onto one another and an investigation into the moralism of ways of knowing and meaning.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 25 September 2003 04:24 (twenty years ago) link

Thank you everyone - this has been very helpful. Leee's suggestion of looking at it as a series of obliquely connected short stories is the way to go, I think. Part of the reason I was getting frustrated with it was the fact it didn't seem to 'flow', and by the time a chapter came back to pick up a particular storyline again, I had forgotten where I was. I felt as though, mentally, I was having to behave like one of those Chinese plate spinners, keeping everything going at once.

Another problem I have is that I tend to read very quickly - sometimes skim-reading - and that's just not something you can do with GR, is it?!

I'm going back to it again this weekend, to start from the beginning again. Wish me luck!

― C J (C J), Thursday, 25 September 2003 04:55 (twenty years ago) link

so what about V.??

― Fabrice (Fabfunk), Thursday, 25 September 2003 06:17 (twenty years ago) link

read it as a parable about modernity -- arid or overheated.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 26 September 2003 03:44 (twenty years ago) link

ten months pass...

so, i started V today...

― david acid (gareth), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 09:17 (nineteen years ago) link

It's almost very kind of good!

― Mr. Tony Plow (Leee), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 21:52 (nineteen years ago) link

one year passes...

ok, so, i want to look clever and need a quote from 'v'. my memory is that there's a thing about "the centre of things" -- ie a recurring line, an important thing, everyone wants to be there. but anyway i googled the phrase and got nothing. am i just paraphrasing?

― the Enrique who acts like some kind of good taste gestapo (Enrique), Monday, 8 May 2006 10:52 (seventeen years ago) link

dead center, 22, 44; center of "one of those queer lulls in the noise level of any room," 93; "center of her face," 109; center of town, 188, 207; "I wanted to stand in the dead center of the carousel," 205; "geographical center of the midtown employment agency belt." 213; "self-centered," 214; "a great wooden sun [...] in the very center," 239; "street's center-line," 244; "down the center-line of the skull," 268; "new ones bloom in the centres of old" 323; "Profane felt that [...] he'd come to dead center in Nueva York;" 368; of gravity, 390; "nine light years from rim to center," 394; of the seat, 394; "Itague stood in the center," 396; "a large pouf in the center of the room," 406; "center of the mob," 440; "center of the ceiling," 453; "circle centered at Xaghriet Mewwija," 462; "In the center was a cistern, its rim adorned with a dark sunburst of sewage." 469

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 8 May 2006 11:03 (seventeen years ago) link

From A V concordance

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 8 May 2006 11:04 (seventeen years ago) link

i haven't read v, but i HEART lot 49.

― The Lex (The Lex), Monday, 8 May 2006 11:04 (seventeen years ago) link

I searched "center", rather than "centre", remembering that thomas pynchon is an american person

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 8 May 2006 11:06 (seventeen years ago) link

ihttp://mots.extraits.free.fr/thomas_pynchon1.jpg

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 8 May 2006 11:06 (seventeen years ago) link

The band Thrice has released their fifth album, entitled "Vheissu," which is the result of the band's singer, Dustin Kensrue, being blown away by Pynchon's first novel V. He had the entire band read the novel from cover to cover before recording the album.

Oh dear God

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 8 May 2006 11:11 (seventeen years ago) link

I assume he taught them all to read first.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 8 May 2006 11:37 (seventeen years ago) link

Well, that metal album about "Moby-Dick" was pretty good.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Monday, 8 May 2006 11:46 (seventeen years ago) link

i appear to have made up the quote and it was years ago that i read it -- but would it be fair to say that one of the main themes of 'v' is the attraction of/impossibility of reaching "the center"?

― the Enrique who acts like some kind of good taste gestapo (Enrique), Monday, 8 May 2006 12:15 (seventeen years ago) link

a lot of GR is about "holy centre approaching" - is that what you are thinking of?

― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Monday, 8 May 2006 12:16 (seventeen years ago) link

no, cos i haven't read it -- maybe i read a review of it or something. baaaaah, this is silly.

― the Enrique who acts like some kind of good taste gestapo (Enrique), Monday, 8 May 2006 12:20 (seventeen years ago) link

i love it when Ned pwns

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 8 May 2006 15:56 (seventeen years ago) link

Happy 69th Birthday, TP, wherever you are.

― scrimhaw1837 (son_of_scrimshaw), Monday, 8 May 2006 17:30 (seventeen years ago) link

ha! strange that the thread was revived on his birthday.

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 8 May 2006 17:33 (seventeen years ago) link

No explanation. No point in looking for one either. It's all part of a internal cosmic unconsciousness.

― scrimhaw1837 (son_of_scrimshaw), Monday, 8 May 2006 17:35 (seventeen years ago) link

T'was a shame that pic I linked didn't show. Just it's so strange he's walking around with a name tag on going "Look! Look! I'm Thomas Pynchon you guys!!!"

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 07:40 (seventeen years ago) link

thrice is pretty good!

― city of gyros (chaki), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 07:51 (seventeen years ago) link

two years pass...

I am sitting here at my computer with a copy of The Crying of Lot 49 next to me, about to reread it for a fourth time. I type "ILX" in the address bar and press Down, but just as I'm pressing Enter, my hand bumps my mouse and moves the cursor so that it highlights one of the other autocomplete suggestions... which just so happens to be this thread.

It weirds me out a little.

― I'm the head soul brother in the US. Where to now? (bernard snowy), Tuesday, 31 March 2009 18:36 (fifteen years ago) link

esp since this thread hasn't been active in two years!

― Zero Transfats Waller (Oilyrags), Tuesday, 31 March 2009 18:58 (fifteen years ago) link

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Don't forget Harry Mathews

― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Thursday, 5 October 2023 21:07 (six months ago) link

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