Thomas Pynchon

[beer good]

Having read all of Pynchon's novels, I can't say I agree - sure, he has a certain style of storytelling, which means his novels are somewhat similar to each other; what reasonably good writer doesn't? And having read all of ATD I thought it was both provocative, illuminating and complex. (Plus, if a newspaper - as opposed to one single person - has a policy about liking a certain author, I'm not sure I would trust it one way or the other.)

 

[Morgolemtheau]

I disagree. I haven't enjoyed many books as much as Against the Day (I'm even enjoying it more than Gravity's Rainbow), it's filled with beautiful prose, a lot of humor (one major difference compared to Gravity's Rainbow), and intricately woven storytelling. Against the Day seems, to me, to show Pynchon's fully realized and matured literary talent.

I read past the part I was previously stuck at immediately the day after (I had a vacation day, whoopie!), and I'm now near page 250, while I also now understand what I was having trouble to, earlier.

Also, NYT seems to still have quite a lot of fans... (I don't know why you think they wouldn't based on one review), look for the other review of AtD in the NYT by Liesl Schillinger--I can't post links. I already read the review you posted, but whether or not its based on my utter enjoyment of the novel, I don't think that review was very well-written. It didn't expand much on the many facets of the story (so far), it only dwells on the complexity and the many characters (which isn't really a downfall so much as it just adds to the ability of the reader to become confused). But it doesn't matter much anyways, Pynchon's work from the research I've done on the press and Pynchon, seems to be a magnet of mixed reviews and thoughts of his work. Many people called Gravity's Rainbow when it was released to be "unreadable". You know.

 

[arnuld]

"White college boys, hollering requests to the "combo" up on the stand. Eastern prep-school voices, pronouncing asshole with a certain sphinctering of the lips so it comes out ehisshehwle...they reel, they roister.


........... SNIP..........
the white bowl. "Grab him'fo' he gits away!" "Yowzah!" Distant hands clutch after his calves and ankles, snap his garters and tug at argyle sox Mom knitted for him to go to Harvard in, but thes insulate so well, or he has progressed so far down the toilet by now, that he can hardly feel the hands at all..."

Ah.. no.. I utterly hate this style :angry:

but really lots of thanks to All of you who posted quotes form Pynchon's novels. I saved my money. I am not saying that Pynchon is bad. I am saying I don't like to read such novels. The Difference Engine which is a quite respected novel also has this kind of style and I don't like that one too. That's personal taste of mine :whistling:

 

[Peder]

It takes a brave person to stand up and confess to disliking Pynchon, in view of all the high-class snotty putdowns that one might expect to receive -- which we have already seen prepared and rehearsed in advance in this thread -- but just for the sake of solidarity, while bowing and acknowledging to any and all who wish that it is the greatest piece of literature to come down the pike since brie was invented, I will also say that it doesn't pass my browse meter. Sorry, but that's the way it is.

 

[beer good]

Well, good for you.

 

[arnuld]

It takes a brave person to stand up and confess to disliking Pynchon,

:

in view of all the high-class snotty putdowns that one might expect to receive -- which we have already seen prepared and rehearsed in advance in this thread -- but just for the sake of solidarity, while bowing and acknowledging to any and all who wish that it is the greatest piece of literature to come down the pike since brie was invented, I will also say that it doesn't pass my browse meter. Sorry, but that's the way it is.

As I said, I read to learn new skills or sharpen existing ones. I read to understand Why people think somethings and why not the others, to get insight into human behavior and hence this society which comprises of some mass behavior and some particular types of thinking. I also read to understand the way corporations and political operations control their people and the relationships between these interactions. There are also other important things like the way the governments are structured and fundamentals of economics are generated on a national scale and then I see them making their way into the global markets and then they affect the families for whom they were never designed at first place. Both Fiction and Non-Fiction do the job and Non-Fiction fits much better. Pynchon does not make much sense to me in this regard.

 

[Peder]

Arnuld, my reasons for lack of interest are nowhere so focused as yours are. He just doesn't appeal to me in any respect -- not the story line, not the style of writing. I've previously browsed through his books at the bookstore and just never found myself attracted. And the particular opening quotes in this thread definitely confirm my lack of interest. There are so many other books that I wish to read that bypassing Pynchon is hardly a big thing for me.

 

[chuephödli]

There are so many other books that I wish to read that bypassing Pynchon is hardly a big thing for me.

Well put. I am always puzzled as to how readily liking - or disliking - an author can degenerate into a religious question. With certain authors, there cannot seem to be any shades of grey, either: every word he wrote must be pure gospel.

 

[Peder]

Well, good for you.

A very minor accomplishment, I'll concede!

 

[arnuld]

Arnuld, my reasons for lack of interest are nowhere so focused as yours are. He just doesn't appeal to me in any respect --

well, even if Pynchon writes about political truths and social facts in the usual way he writes (which seems like the style in which "The Difference Engine" was written ) , I am sure I will never read him

 

[pontalba]

I can't say I like his style either, just can't make myself like it, and why should any of us have to 'make' ourselves like something that doesn't fit our personal criteria? I don't mean never try to delve into new territory, but if the new territory is not our cuppa, leave it alone, and no one should try to make us feel the less for it.

 

[beer good]

why should any of us have to 'make' ourselves like something that doesn't fit our personal criteria? I don't mean never try to delve into new territory, but if the new territory is not our cuppa, leave it alone, and no one should try to make us feel the less for it.

But of course. Has anyone suggested otherwise? I have to wonder though, why all the people who are so keen on leaving Pynchon alone are the only ones writing in this thread... :whistling:

 

[Peder]

But of course. Has anyone suggested otherwise? I have to wonder though, why all the people who are so keen on leaving Pynchon alone are the only ones writing in this thread... :whistling:

Me too. I would have expected the charge of the light brigade by now (after reading thorugh the thread and seeing posts higher up). Posting negatively about books, when I have done it, has brought me conflict more often than not, so the silence here is somewhat unusual. But very welcome to me anyway. Perhaps it is the only Pynchon thread where it is safe to say anything negative. My recollection of other Pynchon threads is that they are adulatory, or maybe it is just rare to find negative comments about books, especially Pynchon's. But there's not many of us anyway so I'm sure his fame endures.
Maybe it's the Peace of the new management. /praying/

 

[pontalba]

But of course. Has anyone suggested otherwise? I have to wonder though, why all the people who are so keen on leaving Pynchon alone are the only ones writing in this thread... :whistling:

LOL I would have expected otherwise actually. The first pages of the thread are rather on the devoted side, so maybe now it is a little balanced, yes?

 

[beer good]

LOL I would have expected otherwise actually. The first pages of the thread are rather on the devoted side, so maybe now it is a little balanced, yes?

Well, some of us do consider him a great author, people who like something tend to write about it, and I see no reason to expect a thread to be "balanced" between positive and negative opinions any more than I expect, say, the Nabokov threads to be "balanced." Like Peder says, life is short and nobody's going to be impressed or insulted by a certain reader choosing not to read a certain author, nor are we going to hunt anyone down and force them, Clockwork Orange-style, to read Mason & Dixon. (Though come to think of it...)

 

[Peder]

Well, some of us do consider him a great author, people who like something tend to write about it, and I see no reason to expect a thread to be "balanced" between positive and negative opinions any more than I expect, say, the Nabokov threads to be "balanced." Like Peder says, life is short and nobody's going to be impressed or insulted by a certain reader choosing not to read a certain author, nor are we going to hunt anyone down and force them, Clockwork Orange-style, to read Mason & Dixon. (Though come to think of it...)

Yes threads tend to run one way or the other for the reasons you say.
But I truly could wish that bolded statement I marked was more true than I have found it to be.
I'm simply happy that so far there seems to be an Oasis of Allowed Dissent here that is flying below the radar.

 

[Morgolemtheau]

I guess I forgot about this forum... I need to post here more often, and I should set a goal to not post every one of my posts in this thread! but I wanted to come here for now and present one of my favorite adjoining paragraphs in Against the Day, it seems as though it's a literary crescendo of the whole chapter, in a way:

"Out of that night and day of unconditional wrath, folks would've expected to see any city, if it survived, all newly reborn, purified by flame, taken clear beyond greed, real-estate speculating, local politics--instead of which, here was this weeping widow, some one-woman grievance committee in black, who would go on and save up and lovlingly record and mercilessly begrudge every goddamn single tear she ever had to cry, and over the years to come would make up for them all by developing into the meanest, cruelest bitch of a city, even among cities not notable for their kindness.

To all appearance resolute, adventurous, manly, the city would not shake that terrible all-night rape, when "he" was forced to submit, surrending, inadmissably, blindly feminine, into the Hellfire embrace of "her" beloved. He spent the years afterward forgetting and fabulating and trying to get back some self-respect. But inwardly, deep inside, "he" remained the catamite of Hell, the punk at the disposal of all the denizens thereof, the bitch in men's clothing."

Mmm... and I think I'll just be contrary and post in another thread after this. ...

 

[Peder]

Oh well, this thread just surfaced in a due-diligence search re Thomas Pynchon, so I might as well use the opportunity.
I have just finished reading Lot49 (2/3 anyway) and posted my negative thoughts elsewhere. Suffice it to say I am still not a Pynchon fan, and will leave it at that in the interest of peace and harmony here. :flowers:

 

[Lucifer]

For too long I have deferred reading Thomas Pynchon, thinking of him to be a creator of complex and difficult to understand themes( I quote the critics).
Thank you warm_enema and others, for to you I owe the cognizance of what I was really missing.

It's time to hit the couch,
With Pynchon, for whom many vouch...

 

[Peder]

"Out of that night and day of unconditional wrath, folks would've expected to see any city, if it survived, all newly reborn, purified by flame, taken clear beyond greed, real-estate speculating, local politics--instead of which, here was this weeping widow, some one-woman grievance committee in black, who would go on and save up and lovlingly record and mercilessly begrudge every goddamn single tear she ever had to cry, and over the years to come would make up for them all by developing into the meanest, cruelest bitch of a city, even among cities not notable for their kindness.

To all appearance resolute, adventurous, manly, the city would not shake that terrible all-night rape, when "he" was forced to submit, surrending, inadmissably, blindly feminine, into the Hellfire embrace of "her" beloved. He spent the years afterward forgetting and fabulating and trying to get back some self-respect. But inwardly, deep inside, "he" remained the catamite of Hell, the punk at the disposal of all the denizens thereof, the bitch in men's clothing."

Morgolemthau,
Thanks a million for the extended sample. Seriously.
Now I have two samples, both saying "no" to me.
And I continue to acknowledge that hordes love his writing. :flowers:
Recently looked at Foucault's Pendulum. That one came out "no" also.
Pi, sin, square root lathered on? I already know those words.

Now, across two authors, I think it is the hordes of (useless?) words that don't thrill me. There are other authors whose hordes I prefer. Faulkner for example, or Joyce.

But, to repeat, thank you. That was an illuminating post.