Thread 24823113

I’m tapping out and there’s nothing wrong with that.

What filtered you? I ended up just reading a summary for the parts I was wondering what was going on

>>24823211
no specific part. 100 pages in I'm enjoying the writing style but taking almost nothing from it story or character wise. Postmodern stories always feel so empty.

Pynchon is hard fucking work

>>24823368
You need to shift your point of view. Some books are just not focused on the story and characters, they're more focused on developing ideas and symbols. Moby-Dick is the classic example with its rambling chapters, and GR is Moby-Dick taken to the extreme.
It might help to think of GR not as a novel, but as a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menippean_satire

>>24823386
shut the fuck up about your menippean satire shit. no one is going to call it that. you're fucking talking to ESL indians and now literal chink shills.

Ok, why are you telling us? It makes me fear that you treat reading like some sort of job and you have failed at something but no one will care what you did or didn't read when you die (and likely very little will affect your life at all). I guess that's not even a speculation when you worded it as 'tapping out'. You can't tap out of life or anything without suicide unless you are not awake or don't care to be. Integrate the experience, realize why it didn't resonate with you etc. and make your failure into something positive. Of course there is 'nothing wrong with that' as long as that is honest to your soul and not making excuses for laziness. There is a lot of value in pushing through things even if you don't 'get' much from them initially, like if you can sense there is something there but if you truly felt there was nothing for you to gain from it then by all means, follow what brings meaning to your life. I pushed through it and it was ok, brought me some value but it's just a book.

>>24823386
>Some books are just not focused on the story and characters, they're more focused on developing ideas and symbols
that would be fine if it weren't 1000 pages and oft-unintelligible

>>24823113 (OP)
Yeah, whatever works for you. If the bananas and the missile boner didn't make you laugh, and the exploration of early twentieth century spiritualism and behavioralism weren't interesting, then okay. It starts strong, and there will be much more indigestible stuff, even weak stuff later

>>24823399
Some people enjoy the challenge. Walking up a small mountain with gentle slopes can be fun, especially if you're doing it with your friends and family. Enjoy the fresh air, the view, you can treat it like an escape from the hectic modern life. But rock climbing can also be enjoyable; looking for different routes, fumbling with rope and carabiners. Fatigue, falling, hurting yourself, losing progress and climbing back up is all a part of the experience. It's not for everyone, but the feeling of achievement when you finish a difficult climb is hard to match.

>>24823113 (OP)
I tapped out during the black rape part, why are americans like this?

>>24823439
Pynchon was criticizing Americans like that. The book is proto woke.

pynch thread?
I just started V and oh my word is it magnificent. this is the book infinite jest and even junky (burroughs) tried to be (the first I found OK, and the second was horse shit).
the only other pynchon I read was Inherent Vice but I was like 15 when I read it, so I don't think I fully got it, but I did enjoy it a little bit.
anyways if V. continues at this rate (I finished the first two chapters) it's definitely becoming my favourite book, full-stop.
unfortunately I have a history of books whose beginnings are astounding but then descend into being more meh (e.g. one hundred years of solitude, a portrait of the artist as a young man), so I'm hoping it doesn't also turn out that way with V.

>>24823508
It's rather uneven, but on the whole it's brilliant, one of the best debut novels. Kurt Mondaugen's chapter was my favourite, though there are other standouts like the nosejob and Fausto chapters. I liked Stencil more than Profane.
You don't have to worry about it falling off, its quality is more like a long sine wave rather than a short cosine.
Also, judging by the first 300 pages, GR is 10 times better. So look forward to that.

>>24823386
>Moby-Dick
>Gravity's Rainbow
>Ulysses
I remember hearing DFW at a book talk get asked what he thought of Ulysses. He said that books like that get talked about so much that you eventually want to throw up when you hear them. That's how I'm beginning to feel about these 3 books. Yes I've read them. Multiple times years back and years spread. How are these the only 3 books that generate discussion across /lit/, barring the general threads? When will it change?

>>24823525
May I interest you in a Tolstoyevsky thread?

>>24823525
>try to make a thread about a less popular book
>thread dies within 10 replies, half of them mine
>effortpost reply to an existing thread
>thread dies right after
/lit/ is fundamentally broken. How is it that in my 15 years on this fucking site the most in-depth discussion (talking about symbolism, tracking down references, combing through every line) I had was over on /v/, talking about a niche Japanese RPGMaker porn game?

>>24823534
Sometimes I wonder if /lit/izens get into reading, try to find the hardest and most acclaimed books, read them to feel better than other people and then have to steer every conversation on this board to them because they haven't read anything else.

I'm not even talking about obscure stuff, either. Where are the Chaucer threads? Twain? Emerson? Even Shakespeare or Kyd or Johnson or Bacon or Spenser? What about Roth or Bellows or Barth? How did these three books rise to the top when there are so many of such great quality? I used to think the elitism of lit forced conversations to innovate, but the board has gone flaccid. No one bullies out the philistines. They're all around us

>>24823523
>like a long sine wave rather than a short cosine
haha, arcs, or whatever. :)
if GR is 10 better then absolutely it's something I look forwards to. it's been such a long time since I read fiction and actually enjoyed it. last time was probably Jane Eyre and that was last year. in the mean time I've read a bunch of things like most recently Sense and Sensibilty which wasn't that good, and before that started War and Peace and just wasn't very interested in that either (200 pages), though I wager it was the fault of the translation.

>>24823576
Yeah, you often go through long periods of... maybe not outright boredom, they're competently written books, but stagnation. And then in comes this surprise hit, mainstream or niche, with a sudden blow to your head, showing you just how brilliant literature can be.
From the lesser known books outside of /lit/'s 100 (the other anon is right about /lit/'s taste being stale) I remember being blown away by the Manuscript found in Saragossa, Melville's later novels (Pierre and Confidence-Man), Pedro Paramo and Berlin Alexanderplatz. I definitely recommend trying new and wild things over concentrating solely on "the best of the best" lists or certain literary eras.

>>24823368
The characters stories start moving more later on

>>24823113 (OP)
good decision. his best work is Inherent Vice, Bleeding Edge and Vineland

>>24823659
Have you not read Mason & Dixon or are you just trolling?

>>24823697
I have and I hated it. I only like the books of his that I've mentioned.

>>24823659
Lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow, Vineland (or V.)

>>24823612
I do agree with you loads, however I would be lying if I said that there isn't (at least in this point in my life) a prominent desire to prioritise the 'greater' works over the lesser-known ones.
even still, all those books you've mentioned, save for the last one, are ones I do know of and definitely have on my abstract life-long to-read list.
one of my favourite books that doesn't get talked about very often here is Dictionary of the Khazars by Pavic (I actually liked it so much, the greatest deal of contribution I have ever given to a Wikipedia article was for it); and also The Joke by Kundera, which is actually similar to V in terms of proceeding a set of short story juvenilia and itself being extraordinary for debut novel.

>>24823659
>>24823708
that's sum terrible taste you've got honey

>>24823564
we used to have them all the time until this board got flooded with polfags and redditors. the entire site saw a 4x increase in traffic after 2016. The idea of a GRRM/ genre fiction general would have been laughed off the board. we are in a ruin.

>>24825170
I can't speak to it because I only really started checking out the board in 2014 or so, but I remember the first time I came here, I entered a thread and everybody was satirizing a voice I didn't even know. Half of the thread was latin.

>>24825160
I don't care about your opinion
now fuck off

>>24823525
Because /lit does not enjoy books. It treats it like a chore. This is why there are these charts and starts with the greek and stuff.
Everyone reads Ulysses, Pynchon and Hegel because that's what you need to do in order to feel superior.

The only threads about fun reading are usually the Game of Thrones generals.
/lit is the most pretentious board of all, it's like if on /tv the only movies that would be discussed are Godard or Tarkovsky ones. Or if on /mu there would be only topics about obscure noise-core albums.

It is good to read/watch/listen to classics and art and challenging pieces but aren't you guys also having fun in your lives? Everyone just fucking reads Ulysses and Moby Dick? It's like reading university textbooks. Important sure and one can appreciate it, but hardly fun.

>>24826651
Ulysses and moby dick are plenty fun though. It's fine if you felt like they were a chore and genre fiction is more your speed to spend leisure time, but why project your feeling onto other anons ?

>>24826651
>The delegation, present in full force, consisted of Commendatore Bacibaci Beninobenone (the semiparalysed doyen of the party who had to be assisted to his seat by the aid of a powerful steam crane), Monsieur Pierrepaul Petitépatant, the Grandjoker Vladinmire Pokethankertscheff, the Archjoker Leopold Rudolph von Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler, Countess Marha Virága Kisászony Putrápesthi, Hiram Y. Bomboost, Count Athanatos Karamelopulos, Ali Baba Backsheesh Rahat Lokum Effendi, Señor Hidalgo Caballero Don Pecadillo y Palabras y Paternoster de la Malora de la Malaria, Hokopoko Harakiri, Hi Hung Chang, Olaf Kobberkeddelsen, Mynheer Trik van Trumps, Pan Poleaxe Paddyrisky, Goosepond Prhklstr Kratchinabritchisitch, Borus Hupinkoff, Herr Hurhausdirektorpresident Hans Chuechli-Steuerli, Nationalgymnasiummuseumsanatoriumandsuspensoriumsordinaryprivatdocentgeneralhistoryspecialprofessordoctor Kriegfried Ueberallgemein.
Ugh. It's like I'm reading a fucking textbook. How do people find this garbage fun?

>>24826799
>textbook
I think you mean 'like reading' something more akin to the 'begats' sections of Genesis, the Gospel of Matthew, and wherever else such occur there, or like reading Homer's description of Achilles' shield in Illiad, or like reading a little less than a full quarter of the Aeneid, --except funny.
>ftfy

>>24826745
Melville is a supremely funny author. No other novelist strides the fine line between outward tragic grandeur and the undercurrents of comedy better than Melville. Maybe except Thomas Mann, Naphta-Settembrini fights are top tier, and Mynheer Peeperkorn is just unmatched.

>>24823659
Vineland is his worst but I haven't read Bleeding Edge, Against the Day or Shadow Ticket yet.

>>24823368
>I'm 15% in why hasn't the story concluded yet

>>24823386
this
it's not about the heckin characters, and That's OK

This book is the most pretentious book out there and bought it because of 4chans hype. Just because you sprinkle famous authors names like using a thesaurus to make you seem more smarter doesn't mean the work is good. Got annoyed at it going nowhere, bland characters, and Bolano pulling out his dick and smacking the reader over there heads with member berries, and woke characters.

>>24826745
Ulysses and Moby Dick can be fun, yes. Just like I had fun watching Pierrot le Fou by Godard. Would I watch Godard all week long? Is Pierrot my favourite movie? No.
Enjoying art is a fun thing to do. Sometimes it is hard and challenging but ultimately is fun. Just like learning is from textbooks. Hard but satisfying to know more and more about a subject.

But everyday fun is not reading Pynchon or watching Tarkovsky. Everyday fun is reading Dan Brown's Langdon series and watching the Witcher. And this is what /lit is lacking. Where are the threads about the fun lame fantasy series? Everything is just about overanalyzing Tolkien themes. Every other thread is about Pynchon or Sartre or Hegel or Kant or the greek classics.
I'm glad they are discussed don't get me wrong. But if every thread is just about those then it feels pretentious, like when you come accross film majors and all they talk about some obscure 1920s black and white film noir which is 6 hours long and there is not a single cut or dialog in it, and how it is their favourite movie of all time.

>>24828040
Reading Pynch is like playing Underrail, Wizardry, Souls games, Touhou or any other difficult series. Games need a certain minimum amount of difficulty attached to them or I start to feel bored. To this day I cannot understand why people like Chrono Nigger when it's borderline impossible to die in this game.

>>24828071
If I was on a desert island and could only bring one game I'd bring Chrono Trigger so I could throw it in the ocean and there would be one less copy of that piece of shit in the world.

>>24823415
I honestly hated all that shit and judt enjoyed the psychological insights into the characters
Not OP

>>24828544
Same.

Also not OP

>>24828633
Based fellow psychologically inclined reader
Literally I really dont give a shit about plot, plot to me is only a device for people to reflect on themselves and those around them, their pain, joy, their past and future, their degeneracy and their divinity.

This is why nobody could ever "spoil" me by telling me what happens. I dont care what happens, I care about feelings and thoughts, nothing else.