tbh, Pynchon is overrated, pretentious and tedious. If he were an engineer, he’d be the kind that implements event driven microservices architecture just to recommend new items for users.
Sure, he so smart - but if he so smart, why he so stupid?
I've only started reading Pynchon lately. I'd seen too many comparisons to James Joyce, and I struggled and gave up on Ulysses at least 4 times.
Anyway, I picked up a copy of V at a second-hand bookshop recently and, so far, I'm enjoying it. It's definitely densely packed and not a quick read, but I think he's just carrying on the post-modernist tradition of Proust and Joyce.
You can fault Pynchon for many many things (though I love him) but "carrying on a post-modernist tradition" is probably the last thing you could possibly fault him for.
Pynchon is one of the most esoteric artists I have ever encountered in any medium.
He did take a lot of inspiration from how Henry James writes in a sentence/paragraph level (see Pugnax the talking dog who reads Henry James all day in ATD) but his work ends up being something entirely different.
All I can think of is a quote from the McSweeney's article elsewhere on the front page right now.
"we are proud to bring the written word into the future with revolutionary technology that delivers the one thing readers are most passionate about: efficiency."
For me at least, postmodern literature isn't just about conveying a message or an idea. It's about conveying a vibe, a state of mind. And that kind of pseudo-telepathy might even require the meandering and the density and the apparent overcomplication to deliver you enough context to align your neurons into something approximating where the author's were at.
"And that kind of pseudo-telepathy might even require the meandering and the density and the apparent overcomplication to deliver you enough context to align your neurons into something approximating where the author's were at."
Absolutely, postmodern literature is an extension of modernism (i.e. To The Lighthouse or Ulysses) in that it is focused on describing the moment to moment experience of consciousness, except postmodern literature like Pynchon's work dials everything up until the replicated experience of consciousness is the experience of a psychedelic state.
This results in confounding literature where it is difficult to deduce what is real, what the point is, and to orient oneself. This is unavoidably a necessary part of inducing such an intense mental state in the reader.
shever73|2 years ago
Anyway, I picked up a copy of V at a second-hand bookshop recently and, so far, I'm enjoying it. It's definitely densely packed and not a quick read, but I think he's just carrying on the post-modernist tradition of Proust and Joyce.
dumpsterlid|2 years ago
Pynchon is one of the most esoteric artists I have ever encountered in any medium. He did take a lot of inspiration from how Henry James writes in a sentence/paragraph level (see Pugnax the talking dog who reads Henry James all day in ATD) but his work ends up being something entirely different.
dmreedy|2 years ago
"we are proud to bring the written word into the future with revolutionary technology that delivers the one thing readers are most passionate about: efficiency."
For me at least, postmodern literature isn't just about conveying a message or an idea. It's about conveying a vibe, a state of mind. And that kind of pseudo-telepathy might even require the meandering and the density and the apparent overcomplication to deliver you enough context to align your neurons into something approximating where the author's were at.
dumpsterlid|2 years ago
Absolutely, postmodern literature is an extension of modernism (i.e. To The Lighthouse or Ulysses) in that it is focused on describing the moment to moment experience of consciousness, except postmodern literature like Pynchon's work dials everything up until the replicated experience of consciousness is the experience of a psychedelic state.
This results in confounding literature where it is difficult to deduce what is real, what the point is, and to orient oneself. This is unavoidably a necessary part of inducing such an intense mental state in the reader.
slothtrop|2 years ago
MontyCarloHall|2 years ago
cantSpellSober|2 years ago
> According to the standard kvetch about his work, his prose is overly dense [1]
Neil Stephenson gets the same criticism a lot, but I still enjoy a lot of his work.
> [Pynchon] can write some truly poignant scenes of longing, love, and loss
Don't get too caught up in the details, and don't hope for endings.
https://pleasekillme.com/thomas-pynchon/
computerfriend|2 years ago
frontierkodiak|2 years ago