Thread 24797419

Now that we've all had time to read it, what do we think of it?

>>24797419 (OP)
you first

I'm depressed that what should have been the literary event of the decade was such an utter and total non-event. Humanity's in a dark place.

>>24797419 (OP)
Im 10 chapters in an it’s a typical “trust the process” Pynchon read. Sometimes I have no clue if I’m reading a flashback or not or why we it’s the third flashback chapter in a row.

>>24797462
Should've made it about Trump

i read like 5 pages and already forgot who all these dudes are. stuffy keegan? boynt? thessaly? skeet? do i really need a wiki for a detective novel? filtered? ya maybe.

>>24797462
reading is unc shit vro

>>24797474
It literally IS about Trump. During the last handful of pages the Business Plot happens and Douglas MacArthur becomes president, the US enters a new timeline in which Thomas Pynchon is never born and his books are never written. All his characters are now refugees. The "Shadow Ticket" is Pynchon's ticket to the afterlife, he's saying "I'm fucking dead and Drumpf fucking killed me."

>>24797462
I mean what do you expect? Most people don’t know what gravity’s rainbow is and think Pynchon just started writing books in 2009.

I forgot this book existed ngl

>>24797492
Chat, is this real?

Not gonna lie the random namedrops like Kenosha made me wonder if it was AI ghostwritten

probably my favorite pynchon protag ever, im on my second reread right now

>>24797541
Fuxk no thats pure tranny headcanon

It's funny to read everything with a Wisconsin accent.

>>24797912
Sooo random that a book that takes place in Wisconsin would mention a place in Wisconsin

>>24798087
I love that Kenosha Kid is Kyles nickname now and not Pinecones shitty joke.

>>24797419 (OP)
Not as bad as the last two, still worse than everything before than
>except Vineland

>>24798191
before than what?

>Korbel mentioned in a work of high literature before E&J, Paul Masson, or Christian Brothers
Midwest bros... we won

>>24797462
I don't like Pynchon, he never spoke to me personally, but I am also sad to see this release pass by as such a non-event. It is hard to see literature as anything but a dead medium. The few remaining greats may as well not bother for all people care.

I've only just got up to Hicks on the boat, enjoying it so far. Typical Ruggles-lite fare.

>>24797462
I thought The Passenger was pretty great. Didn't need to be an event. I'm certain it will be looked back as a top 5 McCarthy book.

>>24797419 (OP)
I love how literature triggers the right on /lit/ lol.

>>24798760
What do you expect when his last three novels have been subpar? This is what happens what an Artist fades away instead of burning out

>>24798920
Pro-tranny, schizosister nonsense. McCarthy's worst works.

>>24797501
I've never read Gravity's Rainbow because it is holohoax propaganda. Should I?

Film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum alleges Pynchon has a second completed novel waiting to be published.

>>24799075
>I don't think Vineland is a great novel, but it is a good novel
Opinion discarded.

>>24799075
Honestly hope it's another detective novel. The most famous postmodernist becoming a genre novelist is kino.

>>24799082
Well hopefully it's not just his opinion that the future novel exists.

>>24799088
He was a detective novelist from the start. Did no one read V.? CoL49?

>>24799089
And I hope he's wrong about Pynchon not being as ambitious as he once was; and I hope the novel he leaves on his deathbed is another 700+ page masterwork. It hurts to see a once great author you've loved for decades happily settle into mediocrity.

>>24799097
I don't think Maas or Stencil are detectives just like Slothrop isn't a detective. They're trying to solve mysteries but not professionally. Just my two cents.

>>24799108
Meanwhile the actual greatest authors were always pushing themselves and the literary craft forward. Joyce didn't just go back to writing Dubliners-esque fiction after creating a masterpiece that secured his name in the canon for centuries. I'm not sure FW is actually better than Ulysses, but it's clear his ambition never waned.

>>24799108
They weren't 'detective novels' through and through but the genre influence was obvious there. He took detective fiction as a starting point and pushed it into the realm of 'high art' 'literary fiction' or whatever term you prefer.

>>24797419 (OP)
It pains me to say it, because at some point it seemed like he was going to be reminded as one of the best novelists of his time, but Pynchon's shtick has aged a lot and I think he will fade into irrelevancy in the coming century. Maybe Mason & Dixon will survive, but the rest of his work is too stuck in a post WWII mindset, which has simply decoupled inexorably with the modern world. Pynchon is becoming a period writer, someone you read to get an idea of how people used to think.

Does this thread have spoilers? I'm only 8 chapters in. So far haven't chuckled once. V2wva

>>24799152
At his peak he was arguably the best living writer. But 2000s Pynchon isn't even better than Franzen, and surely worse than Jennifer Egan, DFW George Saunders.

>>24797462
Well, I mean, what about it appeals to single white 30-50 year old women?

>>24799130

I'm halfway through Ulysses, something I've been wanting to do for a long time, and unless things change it honestly still feels like a chore. We get it, there's a bunch of Irish and life sucks except for Bloom I guess and stream of consciousness and so on. On a particularly confusing section atm. I get the Homeric references and some other stuff but I suspect that he really did disappear up his own asshole while writing the thing. Still plan to re-read it in the future. I remember doing Portrait as a kid and reading it the wrong way, flipping to the back for cultural reference footnotes every single time thus breaking up/ruining the reading. I like how the stories in Dubliners work together, have a note project going on that one to be finished later.

>>24799152
>but the rest of his work is too stuck in a post WWII mindset, which has simply decoupled inexorably with the modern world. Pynchon is becoming a period writer, someone you read to get an idea of how people used to think.
I think this has the right of it.

>>24799208
>and life sucks
But it's a celebration of the beauty of (ordinary) life despite all the hardship and also a love letter to western intellectual culture. He imbues a single, ordinary day, with the wealth of all western culture up to that point in time, and that day is just like any other day, and that beauty is always there to be imbued by an Artist. At least this is what's being attempted. It's an utterly mundane day with an entirely ordinary hero, and yet every waking moment is imbued with symbols that link all of our races (broadly used) past to that mundane pressnt.

>>24797419 (OP)
the pinnacle of Wisconsin literature. far and above the rest of the canon and their third-rate settings.

Got this last Wednesday and I’m only 50 pages in.

>>24797462
Maybe faggots like you should be reading new and emerging authors instead of hanging onto the boomer ramblings of some 88 year old alzheimers patient
>inb4 b-but only romantasy slop is published there days!!

>>24799402
Who are some of these authors? F. Gardner perhaps?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkl5STe_V0o&t=140s

>>24799409
Depends on what you're into, you should really be looking for literature that engages you instead of deciding someone like Pynchon needs to be read because of his name.

>>24797462
Agreed. It's not just literature but all kinds of media. Everyone is pissed off and angry because of cheeto hitler and instead of channeling it into media and supporting they are all taking their ball and going home. It's really fucking lame. So much great media was created under populist and republican leaders, and the online global liberal-left are fucking the entire world up for everyone with their cry baby bullshit.

>>24799419
So you've got nothing, nice.

>>24799433
I read Flesh by David Szalay recently and really liked it, I have absolutely no idea what your taste is and therefore whether it's a good recommendation for you

>>24799462
I'm not really interested in superhero comics, sorry

>>24799475
Literally how did you come to the conclusion it's a superhero comic?

>>24799508
Kind of looks like Supermanish (I'm not that poster)

>>24799703
That cover is shit lmao, completely wrong for the book, I wonder what country it's from. Mine was completely different.

ok i finished chapter one i don't it was the kid with the balloons a flashback to how skeet or whatever got into being a detective assistant or something? i read gr back in the day, but after inherent vice and bleeding edge i was expecting another movie script book, not a return to hehe so random what the fuck is going type stuff

>>24799759
Yeah, a flashback. I think this is much less nuts than the early stuff though.

Honestly, it's what I wanted IV to be - starts off with a pretty straight detective setup, just a few chronological tricks like the unannounced chapter-long Daphne flashback, then in the second half it goes full wacky and you're riding motorbikes up walls and having protracted pseudo-incestuous dream sequences.

>>24799508
Probably misread Flesh as Flash, I dunno

>>24799298
ngmi

My copy just arrived today

>>24799152
can you elaborate on what the post-WWII mindset is? and how its decoupled from the modern world?

>>24798760
Literally the biggest release of the month in the book world, covered in every literary magazine and literary section of every newspaper. But it’s a “non-event” because?

>>24799088
Agreed.

Started it yesterday and about 50pp from completion. Interesting emphases on lighting, dancing, and, in particular, music in a way that brings At Swim-Two-Birds to mind. Will comment tomorrow when done; enjoying it

>>24801922
We need Steamcharts for booksales. How many copies is Shadow Ticket moving? How many people are reading it RIGHT NOW? WE NEED NUMBERS, PEOPLE

>>24797462
How’d it get to the point where even a new Pynchon is a non-event? Sad how little coverage it had.

>>24802308
When's the last time a book was an actual "event"? Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows?

>>24802308
Because people understandably know that he is decades past his prime

>>24802321
Honestly

>Against the Day features detectives in it
>IV, BE and Shadow Ticket are all about private investigators
Could it be Pynchon had a preferred genre all along?

>>24798059
How? He’s pure cringe.

>>24799298
It’s Okay anon I got it on release and I’m 12 pages in so far :D

>>24803141
>It’s Okay anon I got it on release and I’m 12 pages in so far :D

no chance pinecone wrote it

>>24803123
He's cool. He reminded me a bit to some guys I know from reddit (from the cool niche subs, not the garbage that is the overall site).

>>24802308
It got plenty of coverage. What else do you want? Pynchon hasn't written a great book since the 90s. All his 00s output is subpar.

>>24802926
Noir fiction is awesome. We don't have enough solid detective novels nowadays.

>>24802926
even Gravity's Rainbow had a noir bent to it

>>24803688
>subpar
What's par?
Shadow Ticket may not be his best, but it is one of his most delightful novels. Second only to Mason and Dixon in this respect

>>24798081
Wisconsin accent in a manner reminiscent of old Jimmy Cagney gangster films is the way to begin reading it

I really liked the bit the tasteless lamp, felt like classic Pynch.

>>24804495
give me a break

The reference to Gladio right away made me yawn
>Infernal Machine of Presumed Italian Origin

>>24804495
Sure that guy hasn't read it. That said, now that I've finished, I'm a bit less enthusiastic than before. The second half feels like "Zone" style fanservice for GR fans - pre-war as the theatre of competing potential futures - but just fizzles out in the closing pages, as if there were several competing endings, none of which quite happen or convince. A sad farewell from America that was reported as having imploded into alternate history civil war a few chapters only? Bruno sailing into the sunset, but who cares about Bruno? Ace is doing Schindler's list now, but who the fuck is Ace? Did anything even happen at Fiume?

>>24804852
>Pynchon has an anticlimactic ending
Stop the presses!

>>24799082
>we said that it was a good novel, but not a great one, and that it needed some work, but it could be a fine book. We laughed over it, and Hemingway punched me in the mouth.

Dont worry faggots, once I finish reading it, ill be the first anon to actually post about the fucking thing

Bump

I haven't read any of pynchon's other works (I have found american literature to be incredibly lame and banal so I generally avoid reading americans)
Can I start with this one?

>>24806192
YOU can do anything you want, but I'd start with V.

>>24806192
For readability, it's best to start with his most recent and then work backwards. This has the added bonus of appreciating how good his early work is after you've already gotten used to his style.

>>24806192
Inherent vice is a good starting point.

So this is how Pynchon as a literary figure dies... not with a bang, but with a whimper... so cheesy.

>>24798093
who's Kyle?

>>24807832
he should never have published it

>>24807877
why?

>>24807939
he's just doing it for the money, to help out his kid and widow. but at the price of his own legacy. it's jsut not wroth it.

>>24807961
I'm sure Jackson can, like, get a job or something

>>24803271
are you saying he used chatgpt?

>>24799208
>flipping to the back for cultural reference footnotes every single time thus breaking up/ruining the reading
wait, that ruins it? oh no... what have i been doing

>>24797479
Yep, that’s Pynchon.
Having read lots of Pynchon before is helpful, there’s a real learning curve, a process of habituation to his style. Not as dramatic as learning a new language, but it is getting used to Pynchon’s specific use of language, the disorienting and digressive style he goes for.

>>24798059
I like the book, being 100+ pages in, a lot more so around the 50 page mark when it got more exciting, but how do you see that? lol
I’ve defended Pynchon before from people criticizing him because “his characters are so flat/shallow and lacking depth, like cutout silhouettes meant just to express some ideas and move the story along”, but I still admit this criticism has some truth to it at times.
Doc Sportello is one of my favorites I’ll admit, and Mason & Dixon excellent too, really some more emotional depth to that work I think. But with Hicks McTaggart I see why people make that criticism.

>>24804852
>"Zone" style fan service for
Anon, there's flotsam and jetsom of the other novels everywhere both explicitly and implicitly throughout the novel, in the form of names (Wheeler, eg) or in the form of jokes, suggestions, and whatever else. The Vlad the Impaler bit is rather specifically a nod at V. (as well as its author: V. Lad), for instance; Skeet's concluding missive is Mason and Dixon's concluding reminder that whatever Life's macro-annoyances, and/or paranoias, there are yet individuals we hopefully met along the way whose lives we touched, who when all's said and done believed we helped them out, and are therefore grateful to us, miss us, perhaps even consider us their 'pals forever,' etc., and that this aspect too, this having been there for others, even as a friend, is of not inconsiderable importance in one's passage through life-- too. In short, if you fail to read this book in the valedictory spirit that it obviously intends, then you're bound to miss a lot.
There's a reason Hicks is a cipher who consistently consults the Gumshoe's Manual, a person ever so slightly changed (for the better) once able to convince himself that the OA was 'the way for him,' despite reading about it again and again and never really getting it, --the way many of [us] read Pynchon's novels, in fact. Of course OA may stand for anything 'Eastern' from Kung Fu to Yoga classes, from Christianity to etc.
Ok, tl;dr
Though the book's beautifully written one will get almost nothing from it without having read at least a handful of his other novels. I thought it delightful. Apologies to
>>24804671

>>24809217
>Hicks McTaggart

Hilarious detective name aside, his scenes with the girlfriend or the uncle are unusually psychologically grounded - not at the level of real sympathy we get for Mason or Dixon, but way more flesh and blood than most figures in early Pynchon.

It's a shame Bruno, Hop, Terike and Ace really are cyphers.

>>24809655
Bruno's being sought by the Cheez syndicate (etc.), Terike's always looking for Ace, Hop's being sought by Daphne (whom Hicks seeks, and Bruno too, but not really, as they both pretty much leave her alone), and Ace, who mourns the loss of his Harley-Davidson Flathead, ultimately seeks just adventure. Only Hicks is 'cast out' aiw, without a motive, occasionally wanting to go home, but really, to what? The Mob robbed him of his one true motive (love?) just as the second part of the novel got underway. And absolutely everyone around him in this, his altered state, is MOTIVATED, wants something or fears something, whereas he's just clueless, lost, but nonetheless attempting to do the best that he can do honestly, with his new OA and his Gumshoe's Manual, as if in despite of his aporia, or rather anomie, which is his pathos in the end. Skeet's concluding missive's absolutely necessary, btw, not just to round out Hicks' character and the whole of the novel, but to round out a certain author's career: it doubles as a thank-you note to what readership remains
I admit that I'm a little distressed at this board's unwillingness (?) to understand just how brilliant this novel actually is, and how beautiful

>>24810219
I agree with the end. Although it's hard for me to say (presumably it will get easier on rereads) how much of what I feel for it is because I know it's probably Pynchon's last. That might add weight, not that I think it's an allegory, but it might add weight to characters disappearing to parts unknown and the letters of those left behind.

Honestly still a little confused at the American cheese coup at the end. It isn't out of nowhere I suppose, Al Capone of Cheese and all, but it's certainly the kind of thing you would expect to be accompanied by more elaboration.

>>24810333
>I agree with the end.
As in, the end of your post >>24810219

>>24810333
Yeah, the reading's still fresh, I'll read it again probably next week (I'm rereading Vineland now as I'm going to see the movie that it's supposably based on this evening) my thinking about it will no doubt change, etc.
I can say with a degree of confidence that Shadow Ticket is far more poetic, or more 'poetically wrought,' than either IV (which I reread before the 7th) and Vineland, both of which by design are straight-up novels. Shadow Ticket's something else, a different species, but what even approximately 'it is' will take some time to figure out, at least to my own satisfaction

>>24810750
I've only read V and Lot 49 myself (I have GR but put off reading it for this one) and Shadow Ticket didn't seem too far off those. I don't think it was quite as good though.

>>24810219
>Bruno's being sought ..., Terike's always looking..., Hop's being sought ..., and Ace ... ultimately seeks...

Right. Cyphers. They don't exist as characters, but symbols. Hicks is the character.

As for the end - it's clearly a goodbye, that doesn't make all the motorbike and airship stuff suddenly meaningful, does it?

>>24797419 (OP)
Did anyone else go to their local No More Kings protest? I did a thing I think my fellow Pyneconeheads will appreciate. I know it's referencing the movie and not something from the books, but I think Pynchon would approve.

>"Milwaukee 1932, the Great Depression going full blast, repeal of Prohibition just around the corner, Al Capone in the federal pen, the private investigation business shifting from labor-management relations to the more domestic kind. Hicks McTaggart, a one-time strikebreaker turned private eye, thinks he’s found job security until he gets sent out on what should be a routine case, locating and bringing back the heiress of a Wisconsin cheese fortune who’s taken a mind to go wandering. Before he knows it, he’s been shanghaied onto a transoceanic liner, ending up eventually in Hungary where there’s no shoreline, a language from some other planet, and enough pastry to see any cop well into retirement—and of course no sign of the runaway heiress he’s supposed to be chasing. By the time Hicks catches up with her he will find himself also entangled with Nazis, Soviet agents, British counterspies, swing musicians, practitioners of the paranormal, outlaw motorcyclists, and the troubles that come with each of them, none of which Hicks is qualified, forget about being paid, to deal with. Surrounded by history he has no grasp on and can’t see his way around in or out of, the only bright side for Hicks is it’s the dawn of the Big Band Era and as it happens he’s a pretty good dancer. Whether this will be enough to allow him somehow to lindy-hop his way back again to Milwaukee and the normal world, which may no longer exist, is another question."
dawg who wrote this shit

I have not finished it so please, no more posts until I do. Thank you.

>>24811982
Dilate and seethe, tranny.

>>24812000
Literally only one person who could have. Or, an LLM told to emulate that one person's style.

>>24812102
We will never have another thread at this rate.

>>24812156
I got busy out of nowhere. Do not fret, I will finish it tomorrow.

>>24811716
There are constant rumors about another book, I think I see the American Civil War as the most frequent time period/setting, that will presumably be published posthumously to make the widow and kiddo the most dough.

>>24812160
Thanks for taking one for the team here.

>>24812161
These rumors are entirely unfounded and based off of research he did for previous books that get brought up by people who haven't read those books, it's the same with the whole Japanese insurance adjustor thing where people don't get that they're talking about stuff that was in Vineland as if it were a new secret book that Pynchon is working on now

>>24811982
Based and no kings pilled

>>24812383
Pynchon told his publisher back when he sent them Gravity's Rainbow that it was the first of four (4) novels that would change literature or something and people have assumed Mason & Dixon and Against the Day to have been the 2nd and 3rd, so that would still leave a theoretical 4th book up in the air

>>24813173
He also said of GR
>I was so fucked up while I was writing it . . . that now I go back over some of those sequences and I can't figure out what I could have meant.
So take that with a grain of salt

I don't have the book yet but someone on reddit said that very early in the book someone "hauls out a gong", like in the copypasta. Can someone confirm if this is indeed so?

>>24813333

This is the only mention of a gong in the book.

>>24813379
Aww shucks. For a moment I thought we'd finally proven that Ruggles lurks here.

>>24811982
Kewl banner, my dudebro. We're in dark times, but things are getting better and I have no words to explain how much I fucking love that The Thomas Pynchon is playing a role in that.

NO PASARAN and VIVA LA REVOLUCION!

>>24814557
>five Pfizer dollars have been deposited into your account

>>24814562
Pfizer isn't paying me shit. I'm skeptic of big pharma. But if this is an anti-vax post, then enjoy your long covid.

>>24814562
>I'm skeptic of big pharma.
lol no you're not

This thread reminded me I had a once-in-a-lifetime Pynchon-tier joke once...

Nearly 20 years ago now, I used to work at a brain trauma rehab facility. One day I was picking one of our clients - a man with a cognitive impairment due to being hit by a car - up from work. He asked if I would stop at the gas station so that he could get a snack for later.

I pulled into the gas station and parked in front of the tire-inflating machine, on which hung a sign that said ($0.75).

My passenger pointed sadly at the sign and said " I remember when that was only $0.25."

Now, I'm not normally a quick-witted man, but I've read enough Pynchon to recognize when a genius joke comes to my mind, so I immediately knew my response, almost as if it were being sung by an angelic choir or crazy lyricists.

I turned to him and said "That's the cost of inflation for ya!"

He just shook his head wistfully and said "yeah, it's too bad," and to my horror I realized that he didn't get it.

So yeah... my once-in-a-lifetime perfect Pynchon pun was wasted, flying right over his crippled head.

>>24815024
That was a pretty good joke.

Also, here using the tire pump at the gas station's free.

>>24815122
You must be from one of those socialist nordic countries

>>24815130
Close enough, Germany.

Just finished today. Had a great time, will reread in the future. Hicks was a lot of fun, although I'm not too sure about all the "apporting"

>>24803725
Is this any good? I've only read his older stuff

>>24797419 (OP)
I honestly despised the first 60-70 pages due to how cliche it was, but after that I genuinely enjoyed it. Better than Bleeding Edge and Inherent Vice, that’s for sure. F

>>24811716
>Right. Cyphers
I thinking we're not only spelling but reading 'cypher' differently
To you a cypher seems an undeveloped character, but I think giving the brevity of their appearances (like most of the persons we meet briefly irl) that they're well enough developed
To me, a cipher's like variable x, in which some value or other may be plugged, and to me that's unquestionably Hicks (a kind of Everyman qua EveryPynchonReader); in fact, for many reasons I think this is quite obvious but it would take way too long to explain. His dancing, for instance, on various occasions that irl one would definitely not be dancing occasions (this is made to approximate the reader's 'reading,' in fact-- in a way reminiscent of 'pick a surrealistic novel,' for instance. Another is his calling specific attention to the lighting AS lighting, as if for the reader's benefit, etc. Of course, one plugs himself into Hicks *anyway* as this is how reading is done, but Pynchon makes one aware that he too is privy to this fact, which is rarely done at all. This renders Hicks' name more than a little interesting: Taggart I know is Priest (son of the -bad?- priest) and Hicks are who is readers are, though this is put forth lovingly, I believe. Etc.
This is unabashedly an Art Novel, that reconsiders many aspects of P's former art (like Chandler's Playback, or Dickens' Mutual Friend- though done in a quite different way than either of these). P himself is fondest of V., GV, M&D, and, perhaps most of all --strange to report-- Vineland.

>>24815954
Kek. Sorry for the mess this is but in a rush

>>24815180
Black Dahlia's a classic. Can be on the prurient coomer side.

>>24816343
The resolution is way too busy, but the reading experience is enjoyable

>>24799429
>cheeto hitler
You fags do know that if he were really comparable to Hitler your retarded middle school tier name calling would probably land you in jail, right?

>>24815024
This is a top tier shouk. The Pynecone would have been proud.

>>24814566
>I'm a skeptic of big pharma
>immediately gets defensive about a big pharma product

>>24807961
>>24807973
lol. jackson's 34.

>>24817291
Basically just a little lad, a baby boy all alone in this cold, cruel world with nothing but papa's old book sales as his tugboat

>>24817498
>tugboat
J play football or something at Columbia like Kerouac?

>>24817994
I wonder if TP (and JP by extension) is among us hapless Jets fan folk; losing might then feel an eensy bit like winning, maybe, whatever that is

>>24818010
goes to yankees games with delillo

>>24818022
Dang. That suggests Giants, not Jets. OTOH someone mentioned somewhere that there was no more Pynchonesque sports pairing (perhaps ever) than Skattebo and Dart. Also that historic loss this past weekend.. that 33 points in the 4th quarter didn't 'surpass fiction' but probably *was* fiction

>>24816343
Yeah I've read the L.A. Quartet etc, I was asking if the second L.A. Quartet (Or Quintet) is worth reading. And yeah Ellroy is coomer supreme

Thoughts about picking this up as my first Pynchon novel?

>>24818221
Yeah you'll enjoy it I think you could start anywhere with Pynchon

>>24797419 (OP)

My favorite part so far:
“Shaking his head briefly as if something unpleasant just alighted there, “Me, I feel like the village matchmaker. This isn’t the usual collector’s mania. It’s desire.” Explaining that his client the Count belongs to a secret community of lampadophiles, or persons sexually attracted to lamps. “You may not have run across it that much in the States.”

“Spend enough time around emergency rooms, you’re apt to see anything. Light sockets, vacuum cleaners, that general diameter, the minute it gets invented, some genius finds a way to put their johnson into it.”

>>24818379
Well at least Byron avoided this

ten pages in is this literally just reskinned inherent vice?

>>24818430
Not really, no. No more than inherent vice is a reskinned Sherlock Holmes.

Just finished today. Honestly, I felt the whole story fell apart in Hungary and would have liked to see Hicks more as opposed to the Ace Lomax and Hop Wingdale digressions. The whole "fascists bad" thing doesn't really strike a chord with me, as I'm indifferent to the history having been lamented hundreds of times over. Didn't really care for all the Jewish sympathizing, but I did manage to laugh a few times through. The ending was quite wholesome.

>>24818871
Having just made it to the first face to face with Lomax in Budapest Ive found the last few chapters to be my favorite so far. First half was a drag comparatively to me.

>>24818871
>>24818887
The duality of man

>>24818892
I mean idk I heard over and over that it drips the ball in the second half and I just disagree. So far it’s precipitously better as it’s sped up.

>>24818907
*drops

For me the middle section after he arrives in Europe started to feel convoluted with more characters and diverging "tickets" piling on top of each other, but after 50 pages or so I got a handle on it and started to really enjoy it by the time the characters started converging together.

I loved Gravity's Rainbow and V but I couldn't get through it. I guess I just don't like his lighter stories because I also thought Vineland was unreadable

Actually, it's a different novel altogether than anything Pynchon's attempted before, the Gumshoe narrative is really just a dodge. I love how Pynchon uses period words in their period senses-- e.g. juvenile, a word no longer used today the way it was back then; today, it's either paired with 'delinquent' or, standing alone, means childish in an unacceptable way. Another such word is 'ticket' (a word Pynchon favors in all his novels); has anyone meditated on the title yet? If so, what does it suggest, or even mean, to you?

>>24820628
I agree with you on Pynchon's ability to capture the language and voice of a hardboiled detective novel from the late 1920s, early 1930s. In that way, he's essentially constructed a pastiche novel of the genre, which makes this his third, with Mason & Dixon and Against the Day equally bona fide historical pastiche period novels.

As for the title, a "ticket" in hardboiled detective language are the particulars of an assigned and open case (i.e., the case files, paperwork details, people associated, etc.). Given that Daphne Airmont went missing in Hungary and Hicks is assigned by forces beyond his understanding, Daphne is the "shadow ticket," along with Ace Lomax, Hop Wingdale, and Bruno Airmont. That's just one of the many possible interpretations, but I think it's the most resonant.

>>24818871
>Honestly, I felt the whole story fell apart in Hungary
Agreed. I would have much preferred if Pynchon kept Hicks in the United States. There's so much in way of commentary that is lost on the tired old fascist trope, but Pynchon only manages to make slight comments and references to anything other than the rise of fascism. In the 1920s and 1930s, there was so much potential for Pynchon to comment on, what Chandler called the "smell of fear," with society gone wrong, enabling a paradise of fakers. Dope fiends, smut peddlers, schemers in low places and high. Crooked cops and crooked politicians. Phony clairvoyants and spiritual psychologists with their offices in suburban neighborhoods. This old image of America is more accurate today compared to the image conveyed in Hungary.

>>24820891
The Wisconcsin+Illinois angle is just more novel for a book like this. The ethnic rivalries, the prohibition breakdown point, pre-regulation food industries and cartel-building is all pretty fresh for TP. Thesecond-hand gravitas of WW2 isn't. It's maybe the great literary failing of the immediate postwar generations, that their moral compass has to endlessly revert to its True North. Holds especially true for al lof those too young to have seen the combat.

>>24820865
>assigned by forces beyond his understanding
I think you present the most literal use of the word 'ticket' in the novel, but I'm not so sure that it's the most resonant. The bit I cite from you brings another use of the word to mind: proof of purchase (usually in the form of a flimsy card) of access- could be to a concert, a boat, a bus,.. -this card doubling as a means of access once presented to the proper authorities abiding by the threshold, or port of entry. Who or what (all) provided the means for Hicks' displacement? Food for thought, I guess..
Speaking of food, I like the common double-meaning of 'meal ticket'-- in the literal sense it is a list of what a cook's to prepare, and a waiter to arrange, for a customer to eat (that doubles as a bill, taxes added) but as a metonym it can be anyone from the fellow who springs for lunch to the old lady who takes care of you.. thereby allowing you to finish that novel (at whatever cost to the health of your soul)
The expression, That's the ticket! though clear in most contexts is incredibly difficult to define: it tends to guarantee that whatever has given rise to its use is correct, or the right way, or
In apposition is Shadow, the shape of an image, or an image when contrasted to the 'real thing' that it reflects; --though saying that Narcissus fell for (and through) his shadow strikes me as a little fancy, it is, technically speaking, the ticket

>>24809027
Not the anon but what would be a good start to get into Pynchon's work?

>>24809027
Not the anon. What would be a good place to start with Pynchon's work who hasn't touched any of his books?

>>24821192
>>24821197
Inherent Vice, Vineland, Bleeding Edge and The Crying of Lot 49 are the "easy" ones. V. is kind of intermediary. Against the Day, Mason & Dixon and Gravity's Rainbow are the big difficult ones. Slow Learner is something you read in conjunction with V. to appreciate how his early short stories informed his first novel.
If I had to pare it down, I'd start with either Inherent Vice (it's got a mostly faithful movie adaptation to help you keep track of things) Or Crying of Lot 49 by virtue of being the shortest

>>24821201
Thanks a lot for the response. I'll check them out. Apologies for the double replies.

>>24820920
>Wisconcsin+Illinois angle
what happens in illinois?

>>24820920
>It's maybe the great literary failing of the immediate postwar generations, that their moral compass has to endlessly revert to its True North.
Trenchant observation Anon, thanks.

>>24821234
Chicago

>>24821234
A lot of illin' noise

>>24803725
I had to stop here to say something about Ellroy. I love the content of his brains, his views, his aims as an author, but, f hell, I find myself at a place where I can no longer stomach his writing style.
I don't know what has happened, nor what triggered this newfound sort of loathing (sorry, James).
The funny thing is that the last book of him I purchased was this one.
I read LA Confidential for the first time in, what?, 15 years, and I was befuddled by how many times I found my reading tripping on his style.

>>24820865
The problem, anon, is that most everyone insists upon reading this novel as if it were 'just another Pynchon,' or in the same manner they've been reading all of his books Vineland forward, but as time rolls on it will be found that TP did something radically different with this one, even essentially.
Two musicals were being made while the action of Shadow Ticket is taking place (released in 1933)-- 42nd Street and Footlight Parade: both feature William Powell (mentioned at least three times in the novel) and Ruby Keeler (twice), and the latter Joan Blondell as well (once). Watch these and you'll realize suddenly that the first part of this novel is loosely masquerading as a musical-- and not at all cryptically, but obviously (if you do not allow what were once your 'expectations' to get in the way). The technique was a favorite of Nabokov's: the novel as 'poem and notes and index' (Pale Fire) the novel as 'biography-in-progress' where the biographer becomes more interesting than his subject matter (Sebastian Knight) the novel as 'psychologist's report and personal apology' (Lolita), etc. And so, as a kind of excellent sustained joke, WE begin with a novel masquerading as a musical in this one, but it changes; it does not last.
::TWO NOVELS went screaming across my mental sky while reading this one: Alice in Wonderland and At Swim-Two-Birds, not anything by Pynchon (though the freaks Hicks meets in fallen Austria-Hungary are more than a little reminiscent of P's past work, as are the situations they find themselves in, etc.), nor anything by Nabokov, Dickens, Chandler, among others.
tl;dr
One (use of) Shadow Ticket aar admits the reader to the musical that shadows the first part of the action of this wonderful new novel. Wake up, /lit/

>>24823226
truly, this is the Pinecone we have been waiting for

one with more songs in it

>>24823226
>the first part of this novel is loosely masquerading as a musical
>Two musicals were being made while the action of Shadow Ticket is taking place and not at all cryptically, but obviously
But there wasn't nearly as many songs in the first part as there are in the second. Perhaps I'll have a go at a second read, but it was not at all obvious the first time around.

>>24823226
i think i turned retarded over the last like two weeks i go to read this post and my mind just shuts off like my eyes keep moving but my brain is like ya whatever man ok i read it again maybe its cuz im always hella tired i might buy a cheap ass house in west virginia and just sleep for months.

>>24823559
The anon is just talking out his ass, don't over-analyze.

>>24823226
ChatGPT ahh post

>>24823435
I hope he finishes and publishes that sci-fi opera he worked on in college

>>24823621
If (you) used your brain for even half a second you'd realize rather quickly that this couldn't possibly be. But tomorrow? Who knows?
>>24823599
When did simply reading a thing become over analysis?
>>24823480
>but there weren't nearly as many
This is true, but the Wonderland Hicks tumbles into (Eastern Europe at the waxing not of fascism but of nationalism, although the latter did nourish the former) is Pynchonian, and Pynchon always purveys songs. Things of note in the first part are the attention to lighting *as* lighting, pauses being conveyed in musical parlance, e.g. 'half-beat'. The first three paragraphs read like the introduction to any musical of the period. Read in Walter Winchell fashion with gangland tough-guy accentuation there is a break right before the story's 'main action' gets underway. The very first line post-introduction is:
>LATER BACK AT the Unalmagamated Ops detective agency, Hicks finds his boss, Boynt Crosstown, waiting on the doorsill, shoes beating a nervous eight to the bar.
>'Flash bulletin,' grabbing Hicks and pretending to pull him by the neck-tie through the length of the shop and into his office, 'just a minute's all I ask.'
...
And so the shadow musical begins. It takes no great analyst to see that this is clearly so. There's more of course: period and literary and mythological referencing, for instance. But the strangest thing about this novel as opposed to other Pynchon novels *sensually* is the spacing between words. Generally Pynchonian sentences tend to be enormous influxes of words caught up in some vortice reminiscent of the one that concludes V., or the ones hovering ominously just off the midway point in Vineland, each with a One-Way ticket to whatever reader's brain! But this just isn't the case here. Though the pacing is quick, the words are more distinct in ST than they are in any of his other novels, which are not word-, but sentence-centric (if this makes sense). Aar this obvious difference is not easy to describe, at least not yet, and
I have to get back to work

>>24821250
>>24821249

Are you guys fans of Sufjan Stevens?

>>24823836
Not either of those anons
But where I work his Christmas albums are streamed every Christmas Eve, and have been for about a decade now

>>24815024
Kino post. Love it whenever real life gives you these Pynchonesque moments. It feels like being inside a classic era SNL sketch.

>>24797419 (OP)
My grandma's the same age as TP and though physically frail (but otherwise healthy) mentally the same as she's always been, sharp. I'm banking on another novel from Pynchon in a few years' time to complete the Early America Trilogy, therefore: a volume ii to sandwich between M&D and AtD, now that the 20th century heptalogy is complete.
My guess is a Civil War novel focusing on Northern Finance and Southern blockade running, primarily, but sidetracks will include certain Nathan Bedford Forrest involvements, Harriet Tubman's in South Carolina, and the death of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Just a guess.

>>24825828
Oliver Wendell Holmes' career as a soldier would be an interesting point of focus, as it not only almost got him killed on three occasions, but also informed his break with Emersonianism to become a much hardened man.

>>24825845
*OWH, jr.

>>24825828
Anon he's almost 90, there is other book coming.

>>24825828
>>24825845
The rise of the Pinkertons would be more in line with a certain genre fetish

>>24825854
>is other
The spirit moved you, anon

>>24825857
The Pinkertons versus Judah Benjamin. So little is known about the latter that it offers great prospects for fiction writing.

>>24825861
Clearly doper's telepathy is hard at work here

>>24825854
I saw a rumor that he had been working on two novels simultaneously, so a second novel may already be complete

>>24825881
And this rumor, is it in the room with you right now?

>>24825881
Shadow Ticket was what, 291 pages? His second shortest to date? That geezer... a-hyuck, a-hyuck! O' course he's completed 'nother novel!
>t. literary insider

>>24806192
Love the first half, lost it when Hicks went on that ocean liner.

>>24826420
Thats literally when it got good. The first half is unfocused and meandering.

>>24825877
Kek. Touché

>>24825857
Also creates a throughline to AtD and Shadow Ticke5.

I haven't read it yet

>>24826452
No, it's the second half that's unfocused and meandering.

>>24826452
>>24826680
How is such a discrepancy in experience to be understood?

>>24826769
This guy gets it:
>>24823226
>>24823776
But no one wants to engage..

>>24826680
This is simply impossible to claim. It’s full throttle, there is zero fat to the second half. You cannot seriously claim a straight line meanders.

>>24826769
The discrepancy seems to be some fucking dork who has no clue what words actually mean.

The first half is what these zoomers love to refer to as a slow burn, a term they don’t even know has anything to do with smoking it’s been so abused in online circles. It also means nothing in relation to media since a slow burn will still get you high, it won’t just burn and burn and burn and never pay off.

The second half is fast paced, razor focused (as well as razor sharp) and moves without breaks which leads to some people - no word of a lie - getting so lost in his turns of phrase that they genuinely think people are driving up walls literally not figuratively.

Anyone telling you the back half is where it falls apart is most likely partially illiterate. The first half is slow enough that despite this they can keep up. The second half leaves them in the dust because it no longer holds their hand with a plodding pace.

>>24826940
shut the fuck up
>You cannot seriously claim a straight line meanders.
go back to r/eddit

>>24826965
I accept your concession faggot

>>24827009
kill yourself

>>24827025
>>24826965
>>24826680
>seething this hard because you’re illiterate
You’ve proven anon right.

>>24827035
kill yourself

>>24827041
With all the people you’re saying that to this could be a mass suicide.

Maybe save us all the trouble and stream your own suicide kiddo

>>24827122
kill yourself

We, as a species, are doing more important things right now. The books will have to wait.
I know, it is tragic, but Shadow Ticket will be among the treasures in the trove awaiting future readers, after the current chaos has settled a little. And, likely, most of us have died.

>>24827351
>>24827041
>>24827025
>>24826965
You must read carefully and more if you wish to redeem yourself.
Do you understand?

>>24827380
I understand that you're full of shit

>>24827371
>We, as a species, are doing more important things right now
Masturbation and doom scrolling?

>>24827745
Adapting to one of the roughest paradigm shifts in our existence thus far.
I am positive great literature is being written now, but its relevance might not be presently detectable.

>>24827924
>unironically using "paradigm shift"
kys

>>24827745
My own initial response may interest you (which I opted not to post yesterday). It was: What? Wandering around aimless and angry?
What's interesting is that the tendency of my imagination (my knee-jerk reaction) was to place its response outside the bedroom/office situation, whereas yours keeps there. I knew immediately that I must be older than you, probably by at least a decade.

>>24828344
you sound like a faggot

>>24827936
>thinks I care what a half-literate thinks
I don't care what you think, words have meaning whether you comprehend them or not.

>>24828796
kill yourself

>>24828735
>sound
What's in earshot's yourself, dumbass

>>24797419 (OP)
Anyone else dressing as Pynchon characters this Halloween?

>>24829532
shut the fuck up

>>24829572
Kek

>>24829633
kys

>>24829705
KEK

>>24830225
commit suicide

>>24830234
Bang. I'm dead. Boo hoo. Happy?

>>24830244
Yes.

Some good posts in this thread. What happened to it?

>>24831114
Midwits came and espoused their pseudointelligence

>>24831254
Kill yourself

how come the first person to mention mctaggart's paradox to me was an llm tho?

>>24831267
sneed

Bela Lugosi is Hungarian. What does this mean.

>>24832175
Which post?

The weird thing about central european third positionism, specifically of the hungarian variety, is that they were often just as anti-german as they were anti-jewish, sometimes even more so due to germans having a state of 80 plus million on the doorstep. This leads to weird situations that are difficult to comprehend to western minds, like the biggest group of hungarian antifascists in 1944 and 1945 being made up of a group called fajvédők, literally "defenders of the race" who as you might presume were neither communists nor liberal in any conventional sense of the word.

>>24827371
There's always time to settle down and enjoy a book.

>>24832522
Another weirdness was the many linguistic groups controlled by either Austria or Hungary without any legitimate historical territory of their own, thanks to the HRE (which lasted a thousand years) and a little less than a century of Austria-Hungary. The rise of little nationalisms (border disputes/wars) was the perfect recipe to upend not just Eastern Europe, but the whole of Europe, which it almost did, although some may argue that what's happened isn't 'finished yet,' aiw
Is this close to accurate? My knowledge of the situation is imperfect

>>24832623
>whole of europe
Binland here, nationalism literally created my nation, without it we'd probably have been russified and that's a fate worse than death. Nationalism in the 19th century was a powerful cultural force that helped create things, it can only be viewed as a force for good.

Just finished it, I found the last quarter to be quite the slog

>>24832836
Care to elaborate on that statement?

>>24832402
That he's as Magyar as the Gabor sisters.

>>24833433
Bump

I've come to the conclusion that this book suffers from its length. Pynchon was never really an adept short fiction writer, his ideas are too expansive to be divulged in anything less than dense, encyclopedic and episodic digressions. If the novel was at least another 100-150 pages long, I think more ideas could have had their loose ends tied up and Shadow Ticket could've been great.

It's my own hang-up that, unfortunately, I don't agree with Pynchon's post-war morality and sensibility and he weighs heavily on those principles in this novel.

>>24835691
huh

>>24835691
I don’t think the page count has to be longer, there are a few chapters that could have been cut in service of other storylines. Less time could be spent with Alf and pip for instance.

>>24832623
Some say that it was the natural end result of a minority bourgeoisie developing, so ironically, these minorities rebelled because they were treated too well.

It was also something that kinda blew up in Austria's face since they often liked to treat the non-hungarian ethnic minorities as a balance against the hungarians, so whenever they got too uppity, like in 1848, the austrian crown promised everything under the stars to these minorities in return for their service to the crown. Then obviously forgot to pay their end of the bargain afterwards. I think Marx and Engels even dunks on them for falling for this both before and during 1848.

In any case, the Ausgleich was incredibly unpopular in ethnic hungarian territories, because ethnic hungarians did not feel advantaged by it in any major way. The only real winners of Austria-Hungary were the mercantile elements, the jewish and the german bourgeoisie and financial elite. Everyone else who was not a member or a hanger on of these groups believed that Austria-Hungary could not fall soon enough and were glad to see its demise.

What westerners often get wrong is that it wasn't that nationalism came out of nowhere and tore the habsburg monarchy apart for no reason, but that the habsburg monarchy did not have any sort of political or cultural force that could hold it together for long. It was also ultimately not destroyed by nationalism but by the entente after WW1, so it's really convenient for westoids to blame it all on nationalism when it was them who thought the monarchy outlived its geopolitical usefulness as a counterweight to Germany or Russia and would be far more efficient as the Little Entente.

>>24835691
>If the novel was at least another 100-150 pages long
why do you think it wasn't? was it him or the publishers? i know those cocksuckers don't like to publish anything long but i would be surprised if htey couldn't make an exception for pinecone

>>24823858
he is the greatest

>>24836540
Huh? The average book is longer than ever. The industry median is like 400

>>24836540
>i know those cocksuckers don't like to publish anything long
This is the opposite of true, when’s the last time you bought a new book? 1920?

>>24836747
Just make a new thread when you do lol

It’s not like there’s any riveting analysis ITT

I like to imagine a timeline where Pynchon sent Hicks to Fiume as opposed to Hungary. The remainder of the novel flirts with the city but just dumps the historical details onto the reader instead of them coming to life.

>>24797419 (OP)
About to finish it now, one chapter left.

>>24832581
Not for everyone, not for every book.

>>24836930
Some good posts in this thread, though it is 90+% chaff

>>24836930
>riveting analysis
Rot in a university obtaining a lit degree jerking off all your pseud buddies if you want "riveting analysis," faggot.

>>24806270
I just finished V. and it didn't really inspire me to want to read more pynchon. Aside from the particularly vivid maundagon chapter it was kind of a slog where random characters break out into song every five pages or say
>wha?
>wha?
>wha?

>>24838817
Analyze this, you faggot

>>24839033
>he doesn't have song in his heart
This guy will never see Silent Tristero's empire.

>>24838333
Best you can hope for on 4chan tb h

I finished it. Its Pynchon lite for sure but I'm still glad to have read it

I don’t know what the schizo who was posting about lighting in the book is talking about, because I seem to recall Pynchon talking about lighting qua lighting in several other books. Like Mason & Dixon

>>24839341
>Pynchon lite
I think this is a key; no book by him *shows* how he writes with more clarity than this one does, but at the same time part ii is going to be utterly baffling to anyone who hasn't read most everything that's come before. In this way it serves as both a kind of introduction *and* a conclusion to what one anon called his 20th c 'heptalogy'. Interesting that it's both the alpha and omega of the series, the first chronologically, the last written.
Surely there's a Civil War era book coming, especially when one views (as I do) M&D and AtD as the bookends of a Trilogy: it's a glaring, almost oppressive, absence. OTOH if it appears I'll be stunned

>>24839411
>the schizo who was posting
You're just lazy, anon

>>24839446
Demonstrate that he doesn’t talk about lighting explicitly in the rest of his novels. Quickly please

>>24839033
When I first read it (at 19) I was blown away by its exuberance, although it was hard to keep track of all that was going on. Pynchon gives a brief view of Victoria (in an Italian courtyard, I believe) right at the eve of her engagement with international espionage, and a proper young lady she is at that time, too. Contrast that with having ultimately assumed the cover of the bad priest whose fate it is to be dismantled by Maltese children, and the pathos is extraordinary, though just, when one considers the fate of Melanie.. for just one instance.
I don't disrespect your decision; D. H. Lawrence had a similar effect on me

>>24839460
It's not just about lighting, anon. It's about the combination of other elements along with the lighting that lends it the impression one gets. Not just breaking out into song (or songs just breaking out) but into dance, as well, in a way very different from his other novels. Instead of sniveling about a post's details, try addressing a whole post for once. Oh, right, you won't. You won't because you can't

>>24839524
I don’t think it’s any more of a musical than Gravity’s Rainbow is. I think it’s kind of unfocused late Pynchon quirk which is his worst tendency

>>24811982
kek

>>24797462
Pynchon is not relevant.

>>24840437
Who is?

>>24840437
So irrelevant that a film based on his work is a current Oscar frontrunner and is extremely beloved, get over yourself

>>24840707
>extremely beloved
Dude One Battle After Another flopped, it lost hundreds of milions at the box office