Thomas Pynchon

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.

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

what is Down?

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

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

am currently stuck in it's grasp.

what is Down?

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

stfu

> 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

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?

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

lake traverse and deuce kincaid, wow

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

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

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

maybe i'll give it another shot tonight.

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

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

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/

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

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

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

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

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

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

it's so fucking cinematic

ATD is one of the greatest books i've ever read...

i might go as far as saying it's my favorite tp by a long shot.

Robert Downey Jr. as lead in Inherent Vice is kind of perfect.

robert downey jr gains 40 pounds and plays slothrop, please

― cutty, Wednesday, September 17, 2008 11:29 AM (2 years ago)

Pynchon loves him some pigs:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef01538e4fe38c970b-600wi

"I was planning to skydive into the middle of these proceedings," joked Pynchon, who didn't even attend the National Book Awards when "Gravity's Rainbow" won in 1974. "Thank you for your teaching," he continued. "Good work and good vibes to everybody there."

Almost finished with V right now, and I'm enjoying it very much.

Did anyone else get this? I'm on the last 100 pages, and it seems like Pynchon is giving us the code to crack open the novel with. As in, now the past 400 pages are starting to make sense - Benny is like a fetish, an inanimate object, explains what SHROUD was saying, slaves, dance of death, all that good stuff. If that's the case, I wonder if it's reflected in Mondaugen's story where the German officer breaks Mondaugen's code and it reveals, from what I understand, a quote from Wittgenstein. I'm definitely interested in checking out what it means to see if/how it reflects on the novel's theme (if anyone else has done this, I'd love to hear about it).

Regardless, he's a great writer. Can't wait to read his other novels.

I am around 550 pages into Against The Day and it's my favorite one of his yet, just astonishing. V is the one I can't seem to get into so I'd say you have lots of great reading ahead of you.

just opened up lot 49 and its just really annoying

thrice is pretty good!
― city of gyros (http://i54.tinypic.com/11l4yvn.gif), Tuesday, May 9, 2006 12:51 AM (5 years ago) Bookmark

an essay on Watts from the 60s

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_watts.html

lot 49 is not really annoying

yeah that's why I got it, because I thought I would be able to read a book by him that I wouldn't be bothered by. And I guess I don't really know how to say this well at this point, or maybe I am reading him wrong (ie. reading like 10 pages and throwing the book somewhere so it's not in my hands) but I really fuckin hate how he writes about race

it's weird, when it comes to books I'm not really that sensitive to how authors deal with race and I can overlook a lot, but for whatever reason, in pynchon's writing, I just get really disgusted by him almost immediately

i can understand that in regard to 'v,' which definitely has some problematic stuff in it. i don't remember any race stuff at all in 'lot 49,' tho.

my problem with pynchon is that i kind of hate his sense of humor, at least some of the time.

there's really no outward race stuff in lot 49 that warrants my rxn other than how he classifies his characters, I guess it's just something I notice much more in his writing than I do in that of other authors

Against the Day is fun -- the most diverting of his books since Lot 49.

whoops -- I meant Inherent Vice.

hahahaha