/lit/ - Literature

Flipping through Finnegans Wake is a blast on fry. Read a chapter of GR on mushrooms and while I enjoyed it, I had difficulty remembering what happened on the previous page.

I just don't understand. How the fuck Bianca and Gottfried the same person? And despite that, how does a sex slave fall in love with his master (Blicero)? I know this is avant-garde, but what the fuck.

Gravity's Rainbow or Mason & Dixon, which one is better?

What about this one?

I had a dream last night where the name Thomas Pynchon and gravity's rainbow kept appearing. I woke up at 3am and I couldn't fucking sleep and I just ordered the book. What the fuck lit?

How "difficult" is this?

I was able to make it through Ulysses fine (except Oxen of the Sun. Fuck that chapter). I don't want to be reading a plot summary of every chapter when I finish them.

could you imagine wasting 7 years of your life on THIS

what THE FUCK is up with that disgusting scat/BDSM scene and river boat thing or whatever? why did Thomas Pynchon write that depraved lunacy?

When does it start getting good?

>pick up this book because of the /lit/ memes
>not sure what to expect
>start reading it
>it's actually fucking incredible

I'm still reading it bros, I know some of you guys might see this as a shitpost, and it probably is, but I gotta thank you guys for getting me to read this book. Pynchon's writing is amazing, and the way the novel flows is incredible to me. This passage I was reading I really liked:


“And one cried wee, wee, wee, all the way—” Jessica breaking down in a giggle as he reaches for the spot along her sweatered flank he knows she can’t bear to be tickled in. She hunches, squirming, out of the way as he rolls past, bouncing off the back of the sofa but making a nice recovery, and by now she’s ticklish all over, he can grab an ankle, elbow—

But a rocket has suddenly struck. A terrific blast quite close beyond the village: the entire fabric of the air, the time, is changed—the casement window blown inward, rebounding with a wood squeak to slam again as all the house still shudders.

Their hearts pound. Eardrums brushed taut by the overpressure ring in pain. The invisible train rushes away close over the rooftop. . . . They sit still as the painted dogs now, silent, oddly unable to touch. Death has come in the pantry door: stands watching them, iron and patient, with a look that says try to tickle me.”

ITT: Books you don't have a high enough IQ to enjoy.

So I've been studying engineering physics for a couple years, which is what Thomas Pynchon studied at Cornell before he switched to writing. There were many references in the book that only an engineer would understand, especially around the middle at Mittewerke. Stuff about calculus, electromagnetism, manometers and fluid mechanics etc.

I really enjoyed the book because I saw many references to things that I would never have expected to see in something non-scientific. Did anyone else experience the same thing? If not, did you learn it or just skip/ignore it?

I'm reading this and I'm wondering if it's worth continuing since i'm getting confused a lot. I didn't really understand the threat the adenoid dream prevented and I'm at the part about Slothrop's relatives gravestones and i've got no idea what's going on.

I read infinite jest pretty easily but this is on a whole different level. Should I keep trying /lit/?

This book is horrible. After reading The Crying of Lot 49, Slow Learner and now this, I'm convinced that Thomas Pynchon is a hack, and the reason we don't hear from him is because he has nothing to say and knows that if we gave him a microphone and fifteen minutes he'd be found out.

90% of /lit/izens who pick up this novel won't finish it, and 90% of those who do won't like it. But 100% of them will pretend they do because Pynchon has the rare reputation of being one of those authors you "have to read". We're all convinced Pynchon is the possessor of some private, hidden genius -- that buried somewhere between the rambling nonsensical plot and the long winded, super cerebral, jargon riddled diatribes on "the Rocket" and the sexual implications of its trajectory and its relation to the symphonic form is a message of some import.

But for all the hype, someone please point to a passage in this novel that overreaches or couldn't be approximated by the efforts of anyone else who lived a super reclusive, hermetic lifestyle, owned a library card, and was given nearly a decade (the length of time between the publication of this novel and the author's previous one), and around 900 pages to do it in.

What are some good erotic literary novels?

I tried making a thread about this the other day, but it was ignored. Let's try this again.

I'm not enjoying Gravity's Rainbow. Nor am I understanding any significance.

I loved part one, Beyond the Zero. The prose was great, several passages were meaningful to me, and I got a sense of the spirit of war and paranoia. Mexico and Jessica were my favorite characters.

But I'm in part three right now, and I'm not giving one fuck about this book anymore. Tell me reading the rest is worth it, please.

Let's get this out of the way

Just finished reading pic related. Where's my prize, /lit/?

>>8079944

Why is it that people can never come to a clear consensus on this book? People either say that it's the emperor's new clothes or that it's the greatest thing ever made. Even with other meme-books on /lit/ that people might ironically shit on, these books will still have a clear majority consensus outside of /lit/.

However even outside of 4chan, there isn't really a clear majority response to whether or not this book is shit or is good. Does it have a lot to do with people wanting to like this book even if they dont understand shit about it? On the flip side, does it have to do with people not really being able to get into Pynchon's writing?

ITT: fuked up books

i freaking love this book man. one day when i went to my friend jackson's house for his birthday i strapped a bottlerocket to the area where my penis is (but outside of my clothes). we were outside and all my friends were like baha dude that's funny and i just said "i dare you guys to jerk me off. I double dog DARE you. just see what will happen." they were all like aha dude no you're crazy. scaredy cats wouldn't do it. so i went back inside and asked jackson's mom where the lighter was, telling her it was for the birthday cake. what can i say? sometimes i'll tell a little white lie when it's for one of my nutso pranks. anyway, when i came back out with a lit V2 on my groin, a screaming came across jackson's driveway. you shoulda saw their faces. i'd have to say that i've always done off-the-wall things like that, but ever since i got the book i've been just a little bit more... shall we say... bananas. ;)

>So, anon, what's your favorite novel?
>Oh, definately Gravity's Rainbow
>Never heard of it, what's it about?
> ...

>tfw plebs will never understand why this is a masterpiece if they haven't read it themselves

"What"
- Richard Nixon