Thomas Pynchon

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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that book "A Guide to" or something, someone did annotation for the whole thing that really illuminate the symbolic and historical references.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

what is Down?

― the pinefox, Tuesday, 31 March 2009 19:04 (fifteen years ago) link

the inner layer of insulating feathers on waterfowl. Also, one of the four direction buttons just to the right of your enter key.

― Zero Transfats Waller (Oilyrags), Tuesday, 31 March 2009 19:06 (fifteen years ago) link

No-one's mentione 'Against the Day' yet.

am currently stuck in it's grasp.

― Jarlrmai, Tuesday, 31 March 2009 19:41 (fifteen years ago) link

what is Down?

― the pinefox, Tuesday, March 31, 2009 2:04 PM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark

stfu

― i like to fart and i am crazy (gbx), Tuesday, 31 March 2009 19:41 (fifteen years ago) link

> No-one's mentione 'Against the Day' yet.

Do you realize that this is the first time I will be able to anticpate NEW PYNCHON

― Zero Transfats Waller (Oilyrags), Tuesday, 31 March 2009 20:34 (fifteen years ago) link

five months pass...

Nearly finished my first read of this, and I find it weirdly moving on a personal level - even having been born in 1977 - I'm reminded somehow of lots of people I knew earlier in life. (The DL/Frensi parts and Che/Prairie parts have a particular resonance with two friends whose lives have drifted/diverged from my own, and the friendships seem to mirror one another in a way.) Surprised at how, well, easily digestible this has been in comparison to Lot 49.

what do others think?

― I'M IN MIAMI, TRICK-OR-TREAT (Beatrix Kiddo), Wednesday, 9 September 2009 20:40 (fourteen years ago) link

oops. didn't mean to post that, started a vineland thread.

― I'M IN MIAMI, TRICK-OR-TREAT (Beatrix Kiddo), Wednesday, 9 September 2009 20:41 (fourteen years ago) link

three weeks pass...

lake traverse and deuce kincaid, wow

― kamerad, Sunday, 4 October 2009 21:25 (fourteen years ago) link

i meant kindred. and sloat fresno. and against the day going all annie proulx meets cormac mccarthy. fuck

― kamerad, Sunday, 4 October 2009 22:25 (fourteen years ago) link

must admit i'm not enjoying "inherent vice" all that much. in fact, haven't picked it up for about two weeks.

― moonship journey to baja, Monday, 5 October 2009 00:23 (fourteen years ago) link

Dude. I think it only took me a couple of days all told, I loved it.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 5 October 2009 00:26 (fourteen years ago) link

maybe i'll give it another shot tonight.

― moonship journey to baja, Monday, 5 October 2009 00:28 (fourteen years ago) link

a black rush of hair streaming unruly as the smoke that marbles the flames of Perdition

― kamerad, Monday, 5 October 2009 05:42 (fourteen years ago) link

liked INHERENT VICE, took finishing as an opportunity to pick up VINELAND finally, and i love it so far!

― 69, Monday, 5 October 2009 19:57 (fourteen years ago) link

one year passes...

missed this bit of news late last year

http://www.filmjunk.com/2010/12/02/p-t-anderson-to-direct-inherent-vice-starring-robert-downey-jr/

― andrew m., Thursday, 6 January 2011 20:25 (thirteen years ago) link

one month passes...

maybe i'm nuts but what's up in wisco reminds me of against the day
http://www.slate.com/id/2286169/pagenum/all/#p2
or at least the simpsons, the koch bros scarsdale vibe's grandsons if not mr. burnses

― reggie (qualmsley), Thursday, 24 February 2011 15:49 (thirteen years ago) link

I just bought Against the Day the other night, looking forward to digging in.

― rendezvous then i'm through with HOOS (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 24 February 2011 16:06 (thirteen years ago) link

took me a while to get into. the deuce sloat lake fiasco hooked me

― reggie (qualmsley), Thursday, 24 February 2011 16:07 (thirteen years ago) link

ATD is one of the greatest books i've ever read... and i've still got 300 pages to go

― cutty, Thursday, 24 February 2011 22:09 (thirteen years ago) link

it picks up around then, believe it or not. cyprian turns out to be one of my favorite pynchon characters

― reggie (qualmsley), Thursday, 24 February 2011 23:13 (thirteen years ago) link

i wish PT anderson was doing a six hour film of ATD instead

― cutty, Friday, 25 February 2011 18:40 (thirteen years ago) link

it's so fucking cinematic

― cutty, Friday, 25 February 2011 18:41 (thirteen years ago) link

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