>>24686280
>most overrated writer
That'd be Tolstoy.

>>24686280
>most overrated writer
That'd be Dostoevsky.

>>24686280
>most overrated writer
That'd be me.

>>24686280
>overrated
Maybe in America.

In Europe I'd say he's underrated in all honesty. In my country (England) in an academic context he's essentially an non-entity for whatever reason. Maybe too American? But then again Faulkner, who I think is even more essentially American, is adored here in Europe, especially France.

Pynchon’s my favorite writer for sure, because my favorite thing in books is goofs, gags, jokes and rambunctious behavior, and his books are filled to the brim with this. Every novel is like one of those novelty snake cans, you open the book and POP you get a face fulla snakes and you fall back cackling. The mad mind, the crack genius, to do it! And then you think “hmmm what’s he gonna do next, this trickster” and you pick the book back up and BZZZZ you get a shock and “hahahaha” you've been pranked again by the old Pynchmeister, that card. “Did that Pynch?” he says, laughing “yukyukyukyuk”. Watch him as he shoves a pair of plastic buck teeth right up his mouth and displays em for you – left, right, center – “You like these? Do I look handsome?” Pulls out a mirror. “Ah!” Hand to naughty mouth. And you're on your ass again laughing as he snaps his suspenders, exits stage right, and reappears hauling a huge golden gong..

>>24686304
From an English perspective, Pynchon does present England in the best light. Not that he presents America in the best light but his being American affects the context. GR presents a caricature of England which most in England probably are not thrilled about, but most in England probably miss that he represents every country as a caricature because that is all they really are, ideals to believe in.
>>24686314
>pasta represented as original
learn to pasta

>>24686280
>the philosophical insights are just warmed-over boomerisms
Do you really expect writers to be world class philosophers?

>>24686314
This but unironically.

>>24686280
>the philosophical insights are just warmed-over boomerisms
What does that even mean

>>24686371
OP is a zoomer. First time on the internets?

>>24686304
>But then again Faulkner, who I think is even more essentially American, is adored here in Europe, especially France.
Is this really accurate in 2025?

>>24686304
It's weird, I did a semester abroad in Paris last year and French people hold him in the same light as we Americans do Joyce -- who is so quintessentially Irish.

>>24686425
>who is so quintessentially Irish.
Nothing says Irish more than the Greeks and foreign languages.

>>24686322
A caricature has to have elements of the truth to be a caricature, it has to be recognisable - if not it’s just a bad portrait.
Pynchon’s problem in England, like a lot of American pomo, is the humour comes across a bit cringy, a bit like 70s or 80s American TV where they are constantly telegraphing the irony and sarcasm in case the audience didn’t pick it up.

>>24686425
Joyce isn’t nearly depressed, sexually repressed or catholic to be quintessentially Irish. Like Beckett he’s a foreigner really.
McGahern or Trevor, O’Brien - they’ve got the real wet weekend with your mother in law in rural Kerry feel

>>24686452
It has elements of the truth, at least as many elements of the truth as he presents for America and probably more. For both counties he leaves the truth firmly in truth, things which are concrete and can not be denied, pretty much reduces it to proper nouns. The English have a difficult time of seeing this because the caricature he presents of America feeds into aspects of the caricature that the English have of America. The problem goes both ways but Burgers seem to get this a bit more than Bongs, probably because it is very easy for us to see that the image he presents of America is a caricature and see the parallels in how he represents other countries.

But Pynchon was obviously writing for Americans so there will be a slant and those from other countries need to take the time and effort to understand this slant and how he uses it if they want to understand.

>>24686280
it's boomerslop, meta pulp love letters with no substance. Not my thing personally

>>24686280
Out of the people who actually read him he's massively overrated. Unsurprisingly the only people who can actually stomach maximalist literature are midwits who think that "understanding" obtuse literature makes them smarter than they actually are.

>>24686625
No it's actually quite fun with gorgeous prose

>>24686280
>Just finished Gravity's Rainbow and I'm underwhelmed
Really? I was thoroughly whelmed when I read it. One of the most whelming books I've ever read.

>>24686480
huh?

>>24686304
I wonder if Faulkner improves in translation
>>24686284
Kind of true. I think to be the greatest writer you have to really have figured everything out, and Tolstoy kind of went crazy towards the end, I mean this is a guy who had 13 children and railed against marriage and childbearing as evil. The thing is he was a novelist and the greatest writers are all poets. The novel is the father of the soap opera and the appeal of Anna Karenina is really not that different from a soap opera, its just formally perfect. He himself thought his own work was unimportant; maybe we should believe him? I'm not against regarding him as the greatest novelist, certainly much better than Pychon's hipster Americana

>>24686726
Is it though?

>>24686642
>gorgeous prose
His use of the English language is unnatural and grating with anybody with a fine ear (for anyone who can really appreciate Joyce or Milton)

>>24686730
Is what though?

File: Screenshot_20220910-15513(...).jpg (979 KB, 1232x1431)

979 KB JPG

>>24686731
Sure

>>24686746
Why did you post this? Okay, this isn't that annoying but it’s not like fine prose or anything. At best its functional

>>24686280
>What am I missing?
Honestly, don't come here for discussion. If you want to actually discuss prose, themes, etc. check out the thomas pynchon subreddit (reddit.com/r/thomaspynchon). Plus, he actually posts there.

>>24686749
This is the best place to come because he didnt like it and people will tell him he’s right. Dont go to reddit and tell thise retards “I think your hero sucks why dont you convince me he doenst suck”, at best its disrespetfuk

>>24686726
You haven't really argued what's actually wrong with his work though. You just said it's a given that poets are superior and that Tolstoy wrote 'soap operas' and since everyone knows poets are better and soap operas are bad that means Tolstoy can't be considered as one of the best writers. You can just as readily characterize Shakespeare as a writer of soap operas also who I'm assuming you rank above him. But is the pleasure gained from poetry much different from the pleasure gained from a soap opera?

>>24686749
>Plus, he actually posts there.
He posts here, too.

>>24686772
No I don't

>>24686762
I'm not arguing anything, I'm just saying as a social novelist his greatness is necessarily limited. It's really not as crazy as you think to compare Tolstoy's books to soap operas because Tolstoy himself called War and Peace gossipy twaddle. I have nothing against Tolstoy or soap operas, he's just not as an artist close to the same level as Dante or Beethoven or Wagner or Shakespeare or Michelangelo.
>You can just as readily characterize Shakespeare as a writer of soap operas
You really can't. Compare a page of Tolstoy and Shakespeare. The semantic density of the latter exceeds all human thought.
I remember an anon here once explaining to me (arguing against morality in art) that after Tolstoy's conversion his writing became poor and on the level of Paulo Coelho. This is obviously an absurd and contemptible take, his late works are actually very good, Kreutzer Sonata is one of my favorite books ever, but he was able to make it because if you read a page of Tolstoy at random its not going to necessarily impress you very much. It's how he writes through the material or as it were organizes the scenes to maximize interest and excitement... This art is really not that different from a great TV show. Shakespeare on the other hand was quite amateur when it comes to that sort of thing (which is why Joyce incorrectly said the Shakespeare wasn't a great dramatist but a great poet, but that's where he was coming from)

>>24686314
I love this copypasta so god damn much

>>24686840
Yeah I just disagree. I think (like Joyce apparently) Shakespeare was a mediocre dramatist and his strengths lie in the semantic density that you described, but I'm more impressed with Tolstoy's nearly unparalleled ability to fill his worlds with characters that feel real and natural with personalities and inertia of their own on a level I've seen from no other writer except Homer. The vision of an artist is more important than the technical aspects imo and while Shakespeare's poetics and isolated monologs are extremely impressive, his works lack the organic pulse of Anna Karenina. I think someone like Wagner took art in a totally perverse direction with a top down scientific approach so that the end product is pretty soulless though thrives as discussion fodder.

>>24686910
You couldn't be more wrong about Shakespeare and Wagner

>>24686480
This is cope to cover for bad writing. I’ve seen similar to explain away the bad British accents in Frasier, ah, strokes chin, it’s actually it’s a clever meta-fictional approach to highlight the artificiality of Frasier’s world and of his own claims to pretension. No: they couldn’t be arsed to get it right and knew the audience wouldn’t know the difference anyway, and the actors were getting paid too much to complain.
Pynchon is just bad at writing London, especially wartime London, compared to depictions in eg Sword of Honour, 1984, The End of the Affair, even Spike Milligan.

>>24686840
Tolstoy's statement on his own (and everyone else's art for that matter) is obviously hyperbolic, and does not discount his art. Your complaints against Tolstoy's novels or the form in general seem really amorphous. Television outside of two examples is not aesthetically pleasing, Televison outside of one example doesn't hold the breadth of ideas that Tolstoy does. Tolstoy is not loved because of plot but because it is perfect art in the same way Shakespeare or Wagner is. The novel form and its ability to give character unprecedented depth is an artistic progression of the play, and it seems a bit absurd to discount it because another form evolving out of it is filled with bad works. The vast majority of works of Television, Novels, Plays, Opera, Poetry are bad. Nevertheless there are immortal works in all of said forms.

>>24687980
>perfect art
This is an empty statement. To say something is perfect is to say nothing about it. There is no information value conveyed.

>>24686458
Okay but portrait of the artist was 100% about all of that
Beckett I get though

>>24686280
Haven't read GR yet but read V. and enjoyed it quite a bit. There is a sense of loneliness in it I enjoyed, and I don't think the driving themes of his work are so simple, at least in V.

>>24688042
op is what is referred to as a "troll"

>>24687980
> in general seem really amorphous
This isn't a hard science, so follow along if you can. The novel is a more superficial form, the only form where women are frequently greater than men (no offense to women intended), and Tolstoy is a fairly womanly as novelist (his female characters are most prized--which is pretty interesting since we know how much he hated women privately). We judge art by the depth of its conceptions--what problems it was chosen and overcome. Tolstoy's problems are not as deep as others, and his main value is negative in rebuking society, rebuking hypocrisy, depicting the brutality and mercilessness of the Will. It's not meaningless that he came to condemn all art, including his own, and it wasn't hyperbole when he did this, though he was among those artists who hated themselves. But the most sublime artworks are those of transcendental value which change reality and overcome evil, regardless if they are ever appreciated by any mortal (though of course they eventually are). Are Tolstoy's works of this kind? Perhaps, but less so than others. When I agree with fp and say he is overrated I mean that I don't view his accomplishment as superhuman, as I do with several others.

>>24688367
anon...

>>24686731
read mason and dixon and get back to us

>>24686731
Muh grandiloquent prose.

>>24686280
>What am I missing?
Brain cells.