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Thomas Pynchon

watercrystal said:
cann't get into the the first two pages of Gravity's rainbow. :(

The opening of "GR" is much like a GI "Buddy Movie," from WWII. It's actually the sanest life gets in "GR." But by the time you hit "The Zone" you are so caught you can accept anything Pynchon throws at you.

Someone please keep reminding me about the 14th. I missed last January's appearance.

Irene Wilde
 
bobbyburns said:
give it a try, ou be, it's good breakfast table material.

Thanks, bobbybobbyburns...I will give it a try as I love trying to explode my brain before lunchtime...it makes afternoon tea all the more enjoyable...
 
It sounds like my recipe for Major Marvy Meatballs is too late for the "Gravity's Rainbow Cookbook." Maybe I can submit it for a revised edition? :)

Thanks for the well-timed reminder, Mr. E.

Irene Wilde
 
Alright, I'm resurrecting this old thread as I've decided to take the plunge and try some Pynchon.

What's a good place to start? Should I begin with his collection of short stories, Slow Learner, work my way through his earlier novels (V, The Crying of Lot 49} or dive right into GR? Ms. Wilde, do you have any suggestions for this newbie?

ell
 
Ell said:
Alright, I'm resurrecting this old thread as I've decided to take the plunge and try some Pynchon.

What's a good place to start? Should I begin with his collection of short stories, Slow Learner, work my way through his earlier novels (V, The Crying of Lot 49} or dive right into GR? Ms. Wilde, do you have any suggestions for this newbie?

ell


Here is my post on GR

http://forums.thebookforum.com/showthread.php?t=7594

And check out my thread on Kundera, where you may see the painting by Remedios Varos which is mentioned in Ch. 1 of The Crying of Lot 49

(might as well repost excerpt)

atoosmallforsupernova.org_embroideringearthsmantle.jpg

In Mexico City, they somehow wandered into an exhibition of paintings by the beautiful Spanish exile Remedios Varo: in the central painting of a triptych, titled "Bordando el Manto Terrestre," were a number of frail girls with heart-shaped faces, huge eyes, spun-gold hair, prisoners in the top room of a circular tower, embroidering a kind of tapestry which spilled out the slit windows and into a void, seeking hopelessly to fill the void: for all the other buildings and creatures, all the waves, ships and forests of the earth were contained in this tapestry, and the tapestry was the world. Oedipa, perverse, had stood in front of the painting and cried. No one had noticed; she wore dark green bubble shades. For a moment she'd wondered if the seal around her sockets were tight enough to allow the tears simply to go on and fill up the entire lens space and never dry. She could carry the sadness of the moment with her that way forever, see the world refracted through those tears, those specific tears, as if indices as yet unfound varied in important ways from cry to cry. She had looked down at her feet and known, then, because of a painting, that what she stood on had only been woven together a couple thousand miles away in her own tower, was only by accident known as Mexico, and so Pierce had taken her away from nothing, there'd been no escape. What did she so desire escape from? Such a captive maiden, having plenty of time to think, soon realizes that her tower, its height and architecture, are like her ego only incidental: that what really keeps her where she is is magic, anonymous and malignant, visited on her from outside and for no reason at all. Having no apparatus except gut fear and female cunning to examine this formless magic, to understand how it works, how to measure its field strength, count its lines of force, she may fall back on superstition, or take up a useful hobby like embroidery, or go mad, or marry a disk jockey. If the tower is everywhere and the knight of deliverance no proof against its magic, what else?

--The Crying of Lot 49, end of Chapter 1

Here are other paintings by Varo:

http://www.angelfire.com/hiphop/diablo4u/remedios.html

This little passage is from "The Crying of Lot 49" by Thomas Pynchon.

But this little passage is an entire novel in itself. It is a nuclear explosion, a tsunami, a Krakatoa.

Allow me to do some wild, extemporaneous, expository conjecture, word by word, phrase by phrase:

"a number of" = the human race, all who have ever lived or shall ever live; the collective consciousness of the Zeitgeist.

"frail" = humanity in one word, frail, weak, ineffectual, self-destructive, sisysphean.

"girls" = humanity as feminine. God or the Universe is masculine. The final line of Goethe's Faust speaks of "the eternal feminine which draws us above," it is Beatrice which draws Dante upward.

"prisoners" = "the mind is its own beautiful prisoner" e.e. cummings

"top room" = upper chamber, the mystical supper

"tower" = tower of Babel, ivory tower, Borges "Library of Babel"

"embroidering" = Socrate's warp, woof, and shuttle of the dialectal process.
These frail young women are all faithful Penelopes, fending off the Philistine suitors, awaiting Odysseus return.

"which spilled out" = Rapunsel lets down her hair for her lover to ascend.

===================
Scenes and events from works and biographies become the vocabulary of my own private tapestry which I weave as reader and beholder of art. It is only through this private weaving, this creation of my inner world, that I make these things my own.
=============
This painting, Embroidering Earth's Mantle, by Varo, combines two very ancient metaphors for the acquisition of knowledge and power: churning and weaving.

Notice the central figure who is reading a book and stirring a vessel.

There is an ancient Hindu myth about the churning of an ocean of milk in search for the nectar of immortality. There is a less ancient symbol of Socrates' weaver's loom, with warp, woof, and shuttle, as an image of the dialectic process. We are always weaving and churning. But, weaving and churning are two very different processes.
 
Ell said:
Alright, I'm resurrecting this old thread as I've decided to take the plunge and try some Pynchon.

What's a good place to start? Should I begin with his collection of short stories, Slow Learner, work my way through his earlier novels (V, The Crying of Lot 49} or dive right into GR? Ms. Wilde, do you have any suggestions for this newbie?

ell

Since I was mentioned by name...

There are two schools of thought...the one is dive right in to GR. It is, to many minds, the definitive Pynchon so best to just go for it. The other is to start with "The Crying of Lot 49" which is the most accessible of Pynchon's work, get a feel for his style and how he operates (which admittedly isn't for everyone) and if you like it, then move on to GR.

Personally, I dove into GR and found it took me awhile to pick up on Pynchon's style, which is to challenge the reader, take no prisoners, keep up or he'll let you fall behind and make no excuses about not being for the easily offended. Had I read Lot 49 first, I think it would have smoothed the way and I would have been better prepared for GR. However, once I understood the landscape he was creating and his manner of communicating with his reader, I was off and running.

My only other caveat is that GR is much like "Ulysses" in its density of ideas. It's a demanding book and it doesn't apologize for being so. GR isn't a walk in the park, something to take to the beach, or something for people who willingly admit they are of the "MTV Generation" and have that kind of attention span. If you haven't read something of tremendous complexity in a while, definitely do Lot 49 first.

All that said, Pynchon is a fabulous writer and I find (this is my opinion, ok?)his stories are dark-humored, compelling, and intelligent. For the people to whom I do recommend Pynchon, I praise him in the highest possible terms. But there are very few people to whom I would recommend Pynchon, because the world is overly populated with people who prefer McBooks with fries and happy endings, instead of a writer who will gladly pistol-whip his readers with questions about reality, civilization, and humanity and then leave them on their own to seek the answers.

All of this is my (probably minority) opinion, but I was asked.
 
Thank you, Sitaram. You've left me much to chew on.

Your link in the other thread to Allen Ruch's article was very helpful.

Our history is an aggregate of last moments. I may just use this for my signature.

ell
 
Irene Wilde said:
Since I was mentioned by name...
. . .
All of this is my (probably minority) opinion, but I was asked.
Thanks, Irene. I knew you would give it to me straight (I figured calling you by name is the only way I'd get you to talk to me here).

I don't have a problem with density (even if it takes two, three, four readings) and as I get older, the dark-humoured is more to my liking than happy-ever-after endings. The Allen Ruch article that Sitaram provided and your opinions have me leaning towards a look at his short stories and Crying of Lot 49 first. We shall see.

ell
 
"The Crying of Lot 49" is an excellent book. It's so small and moves so quickly that it's almost like watching a movie, and after you've read it, you'll need to blink a few times to adjust your eyes to the world outside again. :)
 
This is my experience with TP:

I started with "The Crying of Lot 49" which I enjoyed, and I'd agree it's the most accessable of his work that I've read. I moved on to "V" which I'll admit was a wade, I tended to move between enjoyment at some parts to slight bemusment at others. "Slow Learner", a collection of early shorter works, I found to be a bit of a mixed bag; they tended to be easier work but varied in quality.
I've now got "GR" staring down at me from my TBR shelf, and this thread has probably moved me a push it up the order in which I'll get through those books, currently standing at 40 odd! I think reading "V" has been an eye-opener and will prepare me for "GR", as I know that this time I'll need to mentally prepare myself, for the want of a better phrase, for reading his more substantial work. This time round I'll make sure I set aside 'quality time' for the read, and take things a little slower and perhaps spend more time thinking through the book as I read it.

Regards,

KS
 
I 've just started Slow Learner: Early Stories by Thomas Pynchon and, as KS mentioned, the stories are quite a mixed bag.

What I found most interesting was Pynchon's introduction (written in 1984) where he dissects each story with the hypercritical eye of a mature writer. At the same time, he dispenses sound advice and observations about the pitfalls he befell as a young writer. He tells where he would, ". . . browse through the thesaurus and note words that sounded cool, hip, or likely to produce an effect, usually that of making me look good, without then taking the trouble to go and find out in the dictionary what they meant. If this sounds stupid, it is."

And this next bit that really made me smile:
Everybody gets told to write about what they know. The trouble with many of us is that at the earlier stages of life we think we know everything -- or to put it more usefully, we are often unaware of the scope and structure of our ignorance. Ignorance is not just a blank space on a person's mental map. It has contours and coherence, and for all I know rules of operation as well. So as a corollary to writing about what we know, maybe we should add getting familiar with our ignorance, and the possibilities therein for ruining a good story.
I've got The Crying of Lot 49 on request at the public library and look forward to it after I finish this.
 
Irene Wilde said:
"The Crying of Lot 49" is an excellent book. It's so small and moves so quickly that it's almost like watching a movie, and after you've read it, you'll need to blink a few times to adjust your eyes to the world outside again. :)
You're right, it did feel like a movie. I recently watched "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and Lot 49 came to my mind's eye in the same sun-glaring, desert-washed, sandy hues. I was a bit shell-shocked after finishing and need to let it settle a bit in my head. When I get my thoughts together, I'll start a separate thread.

It's definitely whetted my appetite for more Pynchon.
 
Pynchon said:
Everybody gets told to write about what they know. The trouble with many of us is that at the earlier stages of life we think we know everything -- or to put it more usefully, we are often unaware of the scope and structure of our ignorance. Ignorance is not just a blank space on a person's mental map. It has contours and coherence, and for all I know rules of operation as well. So as a corollary to writing about what we know, maybe we should add getting familiar with our ignorance, and the possibilities therein for ruining a good story.

Thanks for that Ell! It perfectly summarizes why I read. I recently picked up Mason & Dixon as a remainder. After I get through Joyce I am going to tackle, attempt to tackle, Pynchon although not necessarily beginning with Mason & Dixon.

I also bumped this because of Pynchon's new book coming out on the 21st of November, Against the Day.
 
aec1.images_amazon.com_images_P_0143039946.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V61160064_.jpg

The new 'Deluxe Classic' edition of Gravity's Rainbow with cover designed by Frank Miller due out this month(Nov/06).
 
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