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I started Vineland. So far Pynchon is going out of his way to make his references extremely obvious and spelled-out. Maybe he was trying to dumb everything down to sell books after a long hiatus. For example, the book takes place in the Humboldt Redwoods in 1984. A guy mentions George Lucas and his crew recently being in the area. Got it. Then a paragraph goes on to explain it was for Return of the Jedi... Also, the jokes are out of a bad sitcom, I guess intentionally, stuff like this: "I don't know about your boyfriend... Remember when he showed up at my door in a scary hockey mask?" "Dad, that was trick or treat. He was Jason from Friday the 13th!" Edit: This is not an exact quote and the exchange is less dumb, but you get my point. Mokelumne Trekka fucked around with this message at 20:24 on May 21, 2020 |
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May 21, 2020 20:10
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I find Pynchon at his weakest when his references are the most familiar. I didn't like Vineland all that much and I really didn't like Bleeding Edge, but that's because it had that degree of familiarity that turned me off a bit. In contrast, GR and Against the Day were much more arcane in their references to maintain that kind of mystique and I found them a lot more enjoyable.
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May 21, 2020 22:04
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Heath posted:I find Pynchon at his weakest when his references are the most familiar. I didn't like Vineland all that much and I really didn't like Bleeding Edge, but that's because it had that degree of familiarity that turned me off a bit. In contrast, GR and Against the Day were much more arcane in their references to maintain that kind of mystique and I found them a lot more enjoyable. I forget who said it, but when Pynchon dabbles with dramatic irony, he undercuts himself a bit. Like with the specter of 9/11 in Bleeding Edge.
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May 21, 2020 22:09
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vineland also asks that we give a poo poo about california, and that is a bridge too far for many readers.
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May 21, 2020 22:17
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Bleeding Edge is surprisingly tech literate for someone Pynchon's age but the more modern setting felt ... Underwhelming? It's been a while since I read it but just absolutely nothing of the book stuck with me (except for the Dragonball Z passage), which sucks because it will probably be his last. The mysterious background forces Pynchon taps into work best in an analog world, I think.
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May 21, 2020 22:20
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Gotta recommend Norman Brown’s The Challenge of Islam: the Prophetic Tradition to anyone that likes literary theory, sufism, gnosticism, or poetry. It’s a great collection of lectures.
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May 22, 2020 03:03
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Heath posted:I find Pynchon at his weakest when his references are the most familiar. I didn't like Vineland all that much and I really didn't like Bleeding Edge, but that's because it had that degree of familiarity that turned me off a bit. In contrast, GR and Against the Day were much more arcane in their references to maintain that kind of mystique and I found them a lot more enjoyable. theres an early pynchon story in slow reader (i think it was called "entropy") where he hosed up his references, he talks about some european emigre characters suffering from "grippe espagnol", which he thought meant some kind of melancholic, spiritual malaise, not knowing that it was just a real pandemic. there are bits in V. in particular where he still very much feels like an american writer with an overly romantic image of europe, and i think that's kind of charming and it's most of what makes those early works preferable to me at least V. is mostly informed by a sort of dreamland vision of turn of the century europe, bits of it that pynchon saw on shore leave while he was in the navy, kind of like wes anderson except not lovely and stupid Shibawanko fucked around with this message at 10:35 on May 22, 2020 |
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May 22, 2020 10:32
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Heath posted:Bleeding Edge is surprisingly tech literate for someone Pynchon's age but the more modern setting felt ... Underwhelming? It's been a while since I read it but just absolutely nothing of the book stuck with me (except for the Dragonball Z passage), which sucks because it will probably be his last. The mysterious background forces Pynchon taps into work best in an analog world, I think. stanislaw lem is imo very similar to pynchon, they're both fascinated by the teleology of engineering and machines, but lem was wise enough to stop writing in the late 80s when most of his predictions were simply beginning to come true and stopped being effective as mere speculative possibilities. a novel like solaris wouldnt work if written to include 21st century technology, it requires analogue tech like books and film reels as a contrast to what the monster ocean itself is. the only newer pynchon ive read was inherent vice but i didnt really enjoy it, i think it still benefited from being set in the 60s but something was still missing. pynchon set in the 21st century i imagine would just be a restating of what is already obvious to the reader
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May 22, 2020 10:42
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got around to a general theory of oblivion and it was real good, so fourthing that rec
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May 22, 2020 12:57
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I've just ordered the Islam Quintet by Tariq Ali. Has anyone here read them?. Should I read them in any particular order?
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May 23, 2020 23:17
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My dudes, I am re-reading The Bros Karamazov, and I think the Grand Inquisitor bit might be the best thing anyone's ever written, but you can change my mind if you want
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May 24, 2020 20:00
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Albert Memmi just died and I’ve never read him so I’m ordering The Pillar of Salt cause I heard its a despairing novel in a similar vein as Celine
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May 25, 2020 04:53
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morons: American Literature is all middle brow trash about rich new yorkers me, a genius: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/23/business/omegaverse-erotica-copyright.html
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May 28, 2020 01:37
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I read the URL, and that's as far as I will go
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May 28, 2020 01:48
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Heath posted:I read the URL, and that's as far as I will go I argue the headline is a masterpiece in itself
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May 28, 2020 01:51
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The headline may be the best thing about it, because apart from pointing out the situation raises a legal question, the article can't even frame the basis of that legal question let alone hint at an answer. In short, the New York Times is middle brow trash for rich New Yorkers.
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May 28, 2020 02:38
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Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons is some of the most pleasant word salad I've read. How representative is it of the rest of her work?
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May 28, 2020 05:03
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Heath posted:I read the URL, and that's as far as I will go I clicked the link and was told that I couldn't read the article without logging in, another win from our friends at the NY times
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May 28, 2020 07:33
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Just hit the stop button in your browser before that login window appears. Or don't.
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May 28, 2020 08:40
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cebrail posted:Just hit the stop button in your browser before that login window appears. Or don't. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kkbPG7n9pA
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May 28, 2020 09:24
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u can add a . after the .com on a lot of website w/ subscription things to get around the subscription thing. thank you mel for this deeply interesting update on some fanfic or whatever that article was about
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May 28, 2020 09:41
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CestMoi posted:u can add a . after the .com on a lot of website w/ subscription things to get around the subscription thing. thank you mel for this deeply interesting update on some fanfic or whatever that article was about It's fanfic but it's so much more!
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May 28, 2020 09:47
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I read some of those words and regret it deeply, but it's always lol how fanfic ppl inevitably end up eating eachother alive over dumb poo poo
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May 28, 2020 12:58
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ulvir posted:I read some of those words and regret it deeply, but it's always lol how fanfic ppl inevitably end up eating eachother alive over dumb poo poo Some Bunny to Love: An M/M MPreg Shifter Romance
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May 28, 2020 13:16
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Mel Mudkiper posted:morons: American Literature is all middle brow trash about rich new yorkers trying to figure out the editor's thought process here from proposal to publication
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May 28, 2020 13:18
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Then, in 2018, Ms. Cain heard about an up-and-coming fantasy writer with the pen name Zoey Ellis, who had published an erotic fantasy series with a premise that sounded awfully familiar. It featured an Alpha and Omega couple, and lots of lupine sex. The more Ms. Cain learned about “Myth of Omega” and its first installment, “Crave to Conquer,” the more outraged she became. In both books, Alpha men are overpowered by the scent of Omega heroines and take them hostage. In both books, the women try and fail to suppress their pheromones and give in to the urge to mate. In both books, the couples sniff, purr and growl; nest in den-like enclosures; neck-bite to leave “claim” marks; and experience something called “knotting,” involving a peculiar feature of the wolf phallus.
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May 28, 2020 13:23
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still might be better than The Overstory
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May 28, 2020 13:33
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Eugene V. Dubstep posted:still might be better than The Overstory is it bad? Because Richard Powers is one of my favorite writers but that book looked kind of lame. Three Farmers on their Way to a Dance or The Echo Maker is better imho
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May 28, 2020 14:33
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Some Bunny to Love: An M/M MPreg Shifter Romance Last year, an author who writes in a popular romance subgenre called “Reverse Harem High School Bully Romance” Now That's What I Call Literature!
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May 28, 2020 14:45
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Mel Mudkiper posted:is it bad? Because Richard Powers is one of my favorite writers but that book looked kind of lame. I'm slightly ashamed to admit I had never heard of Richard Powers before The Overstory won its Pulitzer, but it sounded right up my alley as kind of experimental literary borderline-sci-fi. I was exaggerating when I said the werewolf erotica might be better, and I didn't experience the same 'expectations whiplash' that I did with 1Q84, but I did find it awfully plain and unimaginative. It switched too quickly between vignettes about characters that seemed purposefully chosen to resonate with the members of literary awards committees, never really explored the concept that attracted me in the first place, and was bogged down by dull prose
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May 28, 2020 14:53
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His earlier works are legit masterpieces and are a really interesting blend of science and literature Three Farmers on their War to a Dance is a meditation on industrialization and legacy and Echo-Maker is a detective story about the biological constraints of memory and trauma
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May 28, 2020 15:03
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Putting Three Farmers on my list also have this brainworm-y idea that goes something like 'Foucault's Pendulum but the protagonists are editors at a disreputable publisher of niche erotica'
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May 28, 2020 15:11
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our hero flees to Paris, pursued by a shadowy cabal of BFC erotica thread posters he spots two plump women in yoga pants pushing toward him through the crowd at the Gare du Nord and is just about to sprint to the Metro when he feels the barrel of a .38 jab his ribs. From behind his right shoulder Eggplant Wizard says, amiably: "No sudden moves, Monsieur Dubstep." Eugene V. Dubstep fucked around with this message at 15:28 on May 28, 2020 |
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May 28, 2020 15:24
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I feel like Saramago either wrote a story like that or you can sort of amalgamize one from Saramago stories
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May 28, 2020 15:49
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what happened to that thread anyway e: Jesus Christ it's been 7 years Eugene V. Dubstep fucked around with this message at 15:59 on May 28, 2020 |
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May 28, 2020 15:53
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whats the story behind that thread since I don't have the time or inclination to read that much bad stuff
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May 28, 2020 16:23
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IIRC, the thread about how to get rich by writing romance novellas turned, predictably, into goons sharing their business strategies for breaking into the untapped market of Law & Order SVU perps
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May 28, 2020 17:37
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They were advertising it in other threads too. People would casually drop how they were making bank writing erotica (while staying very nonspecific about the nature of it)
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May 28, 2020 17:45
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Heath posted:They were advertising it in other threads too. People would casually drop how they were making bank writing erotica (while staying very nonspecific about the nature of it) oh yeah, and there was a large number of vocal boosters were obviously lying through their teeth about how much money they were making with self-publishing on Amazon. It was like an MLM except they had no incentive to lie beyond the thrill of one-upping strangers on the Internet with ever more implausible success stories (I published RUFF PLAY 3: A BENJI BDSM STORY four months ago and now I'm my own boss!!!)
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May 28, 2020 17:56
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I read that as "RUFF PLAY :3" and now I'm sad
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May 28, 2020 18:24
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