/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19256172]

What the fuck is his problem?

[Anonymous No.19256180]

>>19256172
failed math in school

[Anonymous No.19256582]

beaver wearing a skinsuit

[Anonymous No.19256623]

>>19256172
he wanted to be William Gaddis really badly

[Anonymous No.19256699]

Who tf is this chucky cheese lookin motherfucker? I refuse to believe that Thomas Pynchin looks like that!

[Anonymous No.19256709]

>>19256172
Pynchon die June 11, 2022

[Anonymous No.19256756]

I'm rereading V. for the second time right now, and I can finally sense some of the reasons why it captured my young imagination when I first read it at 16. He uses a lot of active verbs, his syntax often cuts out establishing nouns, replacing them with a patchwork of gaudy details (true to life, we often overlook all but the most outstanding features of our everyday) and silver-tongued bon mots (often outrageous); his characters regularly dip into theatricals and cinematic, cartoony behavior that is easy to read, making them seem almost afloat, almost aware of their positions as players in a fiction. Almost, but Pynchon keeps the plot several steps ahead of his characters, ahead of us, weaving their stories, the story we're reading, seemingly out of the air around us, so that all things become strange and unfamiliar as soon as we think we are on firm footing. One reads Twain and finds a comedian who draws his humor from the cruelties and injustices humanity inflicts upon itself; in Pynchon, you find a critic with the same kind of humor.

[Anonymous No.19256787]

>>19256756
Point well-taken. Quick question, what are 'establishing nouns'? Can you give an example from lynching where such a noun is replaced with a patchwork of gaudy details?

[Anonymous No.19256914]

>>19256787
>"Suck hour!" screamed Ploy.
>Which kind of broke the spell. The quick-thinking inmates of the Impulsive somehow coalesced in the sudden milling around of jolly jack tars, hoisted Ploy bodily and rushed with the little fellow toward the nearest nipple, in the van of attack.
>Mrs. Buffo, poised on her rampart like the trumpeter of Cracow, took the full impact of the onslaught, toppling over backwards into an ice-tub as the first wave came hurtling over the bar. Ploy, hands outstretched, was propelled over the top. He caught on to one of the tap handles and simultaneously his shipmates let go; his momentum carried him and the handle in a downward arc: beer began to gush from the foam rubber breast in a white cascade, washing over Ploy, Mrs. Buffo and two dozen sailors who had come around behind the bar in a flanking action and who were now battering one another into insensibility.
Instead of breaking down the action in a series of "he said, she said" the action moves as details collide with actions; one thing does not do unto another—rather, one thing moves, crashes into, another—and so the whole is a mélange of people and objects surrounded and moved by actions.

[Anonymous No.19256958]

>>19256914
Thanks, I find things like this actually help one's reading and writing. Makes it worth coming here for the intended purpose.

[Anonymous No.19256966]

my boy sherman... hes doing antiques now. not producing much any more