Gravity's Rainbow

[Jon]

Other books of his I've read CAN be confounding at times, but not nearly as confounding as Gravity's Rainbow.

[Slaky]

The constant theme of all his books seems to be paranoia and not only are his characters paranoid, you get paranoid because you're not sure what reality or alternate reality the narrative is taking place. For example: talking light bulbs.

This.

And the transition from rational narrative to "what the hell is going on" is seamless in a lot of passages. Gravity's Rainbow is secretly about 500 pages longer than it looks because you end up going back and rereading the last page or so to figure out what you must have missed.

The best part is that the paranoia he instills in the reader is completely intentional. I remember reading the first 20 or 30 pages and thinking, "OK, so far I think I have a pretty good idea of what is going on here." And that went straight to hell immediately after the mention of Slothrop's memories circa 1944 and Blicero's disgusting exploits.

And that's where it gets fun.

Figured this deserved its own topic. Infinite Jest may be my favorite book, and everything I've read compares DFW's style to Pynchon, so I figured what the hell.

What a slog it was getting through this book. Whereas Infinite Jest was 20% maddening and 80% high entertainment, this was the opposite. I understand that the whole idea of the book is confusion and paranoia (along with boners and sexual depravity) and it's supposed to be a challenging read, but I just didn't care enough about the characters (as I did with IJ) to flip back through the book to figure out which of the 8,000 characters or narrative threads the current chapter was about.

Hooplehead.

So what you're saying is that you enjoyed the pedophilia aspects of the book? You sick bastard.

I liked the poop sex.

Which character did you feel the least apathy toward? I was a big fan of Roger Mexico.

I really enjoyed the Mexico-Pointsman stuff. Pirate was another guy I would've liked to have seen more. When the book starts with Pirate I figured it'd be about him and his strange ability, which would've been cool. But you don't see him again for 500 pages.

The interesting thing for me was all the styles of writing Pynchon can pull off. I just wish he would've written more in the styles that I enjoyed.

I don't think you're wrong at all. This book was the most challenging I've read and way more of a challenge than IJ. I hope you don't write off Tom though - have you read any of his other stuff?

I have to admit, GR was the first Pynchon I ever read. It makes everything else he's written a lot easier to digest. And I'm pretty sure it also made it easier to finish Ulysses as well.

This was my first Pynchoning. Are his other books less confounding?

As frustrating as it was, this book was worth reading solely for the fact that it introduced me to the term coprophagia. General Pudding really knew how to party!

Are they less confounding? To a certain degree, yes. I think V is pretty royally fucked up as well but I enjoyed it more than GR. I really enjoyed it actually - would say it's my favorite of his. All I have left to read of his is the rest of Mason & Dixon and Against the Day.

Crying of Lot 49 is his shortest book but it's probably the most paranoid, if that means anything. Maybe pick that one up next and see if you enjoy it - it won't take you too long to get through and it's nowhere near as arduous.

[Dr. Nguyen Van Falk]

I have to admit, GR was the first Pynchon I ever read. It makes everything else he's written a lot easier to digest. And I'm pretty sure it also made it easier to finish Ulysses as well.

We get it. You're gay for avant-garde, poop-loving novelists of pale, British Isles extraction. We're all very impressed.

[Jon]

I have to admit, GR was the first Pynchon I ever read. It makes everything else he's written a lot easier to digest. And I'm pretty sure it also made it easier to finish Ulysses as well.

We get it. You're gay for avant-garde, poop-loving novelists of pale, British Isles extraction. We're all very impressed.

Well, Master of All the Internet Surveys was taken, so I needed something else to do with my life.

[Pre]

Crying of Lot 49 is his shortest book but it's probably the most paranoid, if that means anything. Maybe pick that one up next and see if you enjoy it - it won't take you too long to get through and it's nowhere near as arduous.

You gave this advice on the IJ thread, and I think it's solid.  Crying of Lot 49 is a good introduction.

I hate to go with basic comparisons with such singular talents as Pynchon or DFW (but I lack their
ability to not, so here we are), but Crying has a rough flow of Candide as far as absurdest plot.  I
mean, it's in so many ways different and better, but that might prepare you a bit.

Gravity's Rainbow was hard to get through because there were so many parts where I just couldn't
wrap my head around if it was a dream or a delusion or the author writing drugged crazy or whatever.
When one of the couple actual "real" (I could ascribe something like thought and motive to them)
characters was involved (Mexico/Pointman/Pirate/Katje at times/Tchitcherine/Geli) I was able to follow
along better.  Once I pretty much gave up trying to tie anything together not involving those characters
and just read each section as a self contained vignette and it was a hell of a lot more fun.  I also read it
over a lot of train rides which surely increased my sense of how disjointed things were.

I agree that Infinite Jest had far more signal to noise for me.  I enjoyed that book vastly more than GR.
I suggest IJ to anyone I think could handle it, but I wouldn't recommend GR to many people.

[Slaky]

Crying of Lot 49 is his shortest book but it's probably the most paranoid, if that means anything. Maybe pick that one up next and see if you enjoy it - it won't take you too long to get through and it's nowhere near as arduous.

You gave this advice on the IJ thread, and I think it's solid.  Crying of Lot 49 is a good introduction.

I hate to go with basic comparisons with such singular talents as Pynchon or DFW (but I lack their
ability to not, so here we are), but Crying has a rough flow of Candide as far as absurdest plot.  I
mean, it's in so many ways different and better, but that might prepare you a bit.

Gravity's Rainbow was hard to get through because there were so many parts where I just couldn't
wrap my head around if it was a dream or a delusion or the author writing drugged crazy or whatever.
When one of the couple actual "real" (I could ascribe something like thought and motive to them)
characters was involved (Mexico/Pointman/Pirate/Katje at times/Tchitcherine/Geli) I was able to follow
along better.  Once I pretty much gave up trying to tie anything together not involving those characters
and just read each section as a self contained vignette and it was a hell of a lot more fun.  I also read it
over a lot of train rides which surely increased my sense of how disjointed things were.

I agree that Infinite Jest had far more signal to noise for me.  I enjoyed that book vastly more than GR.
I suggest IJ to anyone I think could handle it, but I wouldn't recommend GR to many people.

I've really never been able to figure out how to not sound like an insufferable douche when it comes to recommending or not recommending these books to people. I have one friend that I told about IJ and he read it and was extremely glad to have put in the effort. I don't know anyone else that would be willing to do it over 1100 pages, 300 of which are tiny footnotes. Even still, I'd recommend IJ over GR every single time. It almost makes IJ seem like a linear novel comparison when it's nowhere near.

The tangent I'm going off on here is this: how do you recommend something to someone without using the phrase "I'm not sure if this book is for you" which implies that you're somehow smarter/better than that person? It's a real problem and this problem, in and of itself, adds to the insufferable douche factor of the whole recommendation conundrum.

So the issue with these authors and their books is that you almost have to bump into someone that happens to have already read these books as recommendation is all but out of the question. Which is another reason why I'm glad this place exists so I can talk about these pointless things with people who know what I'm getting at. Maybe.

Maybe not.

[Pre]

The tangent I'm going off on here is this: how do you recommend something to someone without using the phrase "I'm not sure if this book is for you" which implies that you're somehow smarter/better than that person? It's a real problem and this problem, in and of itself, adds to the insufferable douche factor of the whole recommendation conundrum.

So the issue with these authors and their books is that you almost have to bump into someone that happens to have already read these books as recommendation is all but out of the question. Which is another reason why I'm glad this place exists so I can talk about these pointless things with people who know what I'm getting at. Maybe.

It's weird, because movies aren't at all like that.  People never take offense to being told that they
wouldn't enjoy a movie.  I think a lot of it is that few people are actually interested in reading
literature over escapist candy novels but are also self conscious about admitting it to others or
sometimes even themselves.  I don't get it.  I like escapist books just like I love escapist movies.  I
also have no interest in the world in trying to finish War and Peace again (made it 100 pages maybe)
or anything like it and I'm not ashamed of that.

I think a lot of things are just so different that the only way someone is going to know if they like it is
by trying and that applies to everything from sky diving to 1100 page novels revolving around a tennis
academy.  There's similar things that you can use to estimate if you'll like it, but if you're unfamiliar with
the general concept then you just have to try it.

If you like to sky dive then you'll probably like to bungi jump.  Liking the Da Vinci Code isn't going to mean
you'll like Focult's Pendulum, but liking House of Leaves probably means you'll like Infinite Jest.

Maybe one of the problems is school.  I know some high school teachers act like if you don't love whatever
classic novels they chose to teach then the problem is that you're failing to get it versus maybe it just sucks.
So a bunch of people probably grow up thinking that they're not smart enough to appreciate good novels
instead of the fact that The Scarlet Letter sucks balls and they should feel good about hating it.  And they
get such a stale view into the world of literature that they think those of us that enjoy it are reading a
bunch of classic/modern day Hawthorne style tripe.

[Jon]

The tangent I'm going off on here is this: how do you recommend something to someone without using the phrase "I'm not sure if this book is for you" which implies that you're somehow smarter/better than that person? It's a real problem and this problem, in and of itself, adds to the insufferable douche factor of the whole recommendation conundrum.

So the issue with these authors and their books is that you almost have to bump into someone that happens to have already read these books as recommendation is all but out of the question. Which is another reason why I'm glad this place exists so I can talk about these pointless things with people who know what I'm getting at. Maybe.

It's weird, because movies aren't at all like that.  People never take offense to being told that they
wouldn't enjoy a movie.  I think a lot of it is that few people are actually interested in reading
literature over escapist candy novels but are also self conscious about admitting it to others or
sometimes even themselves.  I don't get it.  I like escapist books just like I love escapist movies.  I
also have no interest in the world in trying to finish War and Peace again (made it 100 pages maybe)
or anything like it and I'm not ashamed of that.

I think a lot of things are just so different that the only way someone is going to know if they like it is
by trying and that applies to everything from sky diving to 1100 page novels revolving around a tennis
academy.  There's similar things that you can use to estimate if you'll like it, but if you're unfamiliar with
the general concept then you just have to try it.

If you like to sky dive then you'll probably like to bungi jump.  Liking the Da Vinci Code isn't going to mean
you'll like Focult's Pendulum, but liking House of Leaves probably means you'll like Infinite Jest.

Maybe one of the problems is school.  I know some high school teachers act like if you don't love whatever
classic novels they chose to teach then the problem is that you're failing to get it versus maybe it just sucks.
So a bunch of people probably grow up thinking that they're not smart enough to appreciate good novels
instead of the fact that The Scarlet Letter sucks balls and they should feel good about hating it.  And they
get such a stale view into the world of literature that they think those of us that enjoy it are reading a
bunch of classic/modern day Hawthorne style tripe.

A thousand times THI

And a million times THI

[R-V]

So the issue with these authors and their books is that you almost have to bump into someone that happens to have already read these books as recommendation is all but out of the question. Which is another reason why I'm glad this place exists so I can talk about these pointless things with people who know what I'm getting at. Maybe.

Maybe not.

Who's to say this place exists? Maybe we're all just Pirate Prentice's interpretations of BC's fantasies.

[Jon]

So the issue with these authors and their books is that you almost have to bump into someone that happens to have already read these books as recommendation is all but out of the question. Which is another reason why I'm glad this place exists so I can talk about these pointless things with people who know what I'm getting at. Maybe.

Maybe not.

Who's to say this place exists? Maybe we're all just Pirate Prentice's interpretations of BC's fantasies.

Are you saying we should start keeping sex slaves just in case? Because I am willing to do this.

[Kermit IV]

The tangent I'm going off on here is this: how do you recommend something to someone without using the phrase "I'm not sure if this book is for you" which implies that you're somehow smarter/better than that person? It's a real problem and this problem, in and of itself, adds to the insufferable douche factor of the whole recommendation conundrum.

So the issue with these authors and their books is that you almost have to bump into someone that happens to have already read these books as recommendation is all but out of the question. Which is another reason why I'm glad this place exists so I can talk about these pointless things with people who know what I'm getting at. Maybe.

It's weird, because movies aren't at all like that.  People never take offense to being told that they
wouldn't enjoy a movie.  I think a lot of it is that few people are actually interested in reading
literature over escapist candy novels but are also self conscious about admitting it to others or
sometimes even themselves.  I don't get it.  I like escapist books just like I love escapist movies.  I
also have no interest in the world in trying to finish War and Peace again (made it 100 pages maybe)
or anything like it and I'm not ashamed of that.

I think a lot of things are just so different that the only way someone is going to know if they like it is
by trying and that applies to everything from sky diving to 1100 page novels revolving around a tennis
academy.  There's similar things that you can use to estimate if you'll like it, but if you're unfamiliar with
the general concept then you just have to try it.

If you like to sky dive then you'll probably like to bungi jump.  Liking the Da Vinci Code isn't going to mean
you'll like Focult's Pendulum, but liking House of Leaves probably means you'll like Infinite Jest.

Maybe one of the problems is school.  I know some high school teachers act like if you don't love whatever
classic novels they chose to teach then the problem is that you're failing to get it versus maybe it just sucks.
So a bunch of people probably grow up thinking that they're not smart enough to appreciate good novels
instead of the fact that The Scarlet Letter sucks balls and they should feel good about hating it.  And they
get such a stale view into the world of literature that they think those of us that enjoy it are reading a
bunch of classic/modern day Hawthorne style tripe.

A thousand times THI

And a million times THI

Fuck the vapid popcorn novel that was The Great Gatsby, too.

[Jon]

The tangent I'm going off on here is this: how do you recommend something to someone without using the phrase "I'm not sure if this book is for you" which implies that you're somehow smarter/better than that person? It's a real problem and this problem, in and of itself, adds to the insufferable douche factor of the whole recommendation conundrum.

So the issue with these authors and their books is that you almost have to bump into someone that happens to have already read these books as recommendation is all but out of the question. Which is another reason why I'm glad this place exists so I can talk about these pointless things with people who know what I'm getting at. Maybe.

It's weird, because movies aren't at all like that.  People never take offense to being told that they
wouldn't enjoy a movie.  I think a lot of it is that few people are actually interested in reading
literature over escapist candy novels but are also self conscious about admitting it to others or
sometimes even themselves.  I don't get it.  I like escapist books just like I love escapist movies.  I
also have no interest in the world in trying to finish War and Peace again (made it 100 pages maybe)
or anything like it and I'm not ashamed of that.

I think a lot of things are just so different that the only way someone is going to know if they like it is
by trying and that applies to everything from sky diving to 1100 page novels revolving around a tennis
academy.  There's similar things that you can use to estimate if you'll like it, but if you're unfamiliar with
the general concept then you just have to try it.

If you like to sky dive then you'll probably like to bungi jump.  Liking the Da Vinci Code isn't going to mean
you'll like Focult's Pendulum, but liking House of Leaves probably means you'll like Infinite Jest.

Maybe one of the problems is school.  I know some high school teachers act like if you don't love whatever
classic novels they chose to teach then the problem is that you're failing to get it versus maybe it just sucks.
So a bunch of people probably grow up thinking that they're not smart enough to appreciate good novels
instead of the fact that The Scarlet Letter sucks balls and they should feel good about hating it.  And they
get such a stale view into the world of literature that they think those of us that enjoy it are reading a
bunch of classic/modern day Hawthorne style tripe.

A thousand times THI

And a million times THI

Fuck the vapid popcorn novel that was The Great Gatsby, too.

Is it too soon for me to say "Overrated: Catcher in the Rye?"

[Chuck to Chuck]

Is it too soon for me to say "Overrated: Catcher in the Rye?"

Catcher in the Rye is overrated.  Just like Walter Payton was.

[Jon]

Is it too soon for me to say "Overrated: Catcher in the Rye?"

Catcher in the Rye is overrated.  Just like Walter Payton was.

Get back to the M*A*S*H thread.

[Slaky]

The tangent I'm going off on here is this: how do you recommend something to someone without using the phrase "I'm not sure if this book is for you" which implies that you're somehow smarter/better than that person? It's a real problem and this problem, in and of itself, adds to the insufferable douche factor of the whole recommendation conundrum.

So the issue with these authors and their books is that you almost have to bump into someone that happens to have already read these books as recommendation is all but out of the question. Which is another reason why I'm glad this place exists so I can talk about these pointless things with people who know what I'm getting at. Maybe.

It's weird, because movies aren't at all like that.  People never take offense to being told that they
wouldn't enjoy a movie.  I think a lot of it is that few people are actually interested in reading
literature over escapist candy novels but are also self conscious about admitting it to others or
sometimes even themselves.  I don't get it.  I like escapist books just like I love escapist movies.  I
also have no interest in the world in trying to finish War and Peace again (made it 100 pages maybe)
or anything like it and I'm not ashamed of that.

I think a lot of things are just so different that the only way someone is going to know if they like it is
by trying and that applies to everything from sky diving to 1100 page novels revolving around a tennis
academy.  There's similar things that you can use to estimate if you'll like it, but if you're unfamiliar with
the general concept then you just have to try it.

If you like to sky dive then you'll probably like to bungi jump.  Liking the Da Vinci Code isn't going to mean
you'll like Focult's Pendulum, but liking House of Leaves probably means you'll like Infinite Jest.

Maybe one of the problems is school.  I know some high school teachers act like if you don't love whatever
classic novels they chose to teach then the problem is that you're failing to get it versus maybe it just sucks.
So a bunch of people probably grow up thinking that they're not smart enough to appreciate good novels
instead of the fact that The Scarlet Letter sucks balls and they should feel good about hating it.  And they
get such a stale view into the world of literature that they think those of us that enjoy it are reading a
bunch of classic/modern day Hawthorne style tripe.

A thousand times THI

And a million times THI

Fuck the vapid popcorn novel that was The Great Gatsby, too.

But the green light meant envy!

Thanks for summing that up, Pre. It's true - kids are basically taught to hate literature. It's so very sad.

Jane Eyre anyone? Fuck that book.