>>25314783
I read The Crying of Lot 49.
The only things I remember are the name Mucho Mas and a conspiracy about Thurn und Taxis.
What a load of pomo pablum.
I shan’t be reading the rest of his oeuvre. Good riddance.

>>25314797
Read crying lot and I even enjoyed it, it's compact and gets straight to the point.
Reading gravity rainbow now, 50 pages in and I literally have no clue about even tje basic things, like who's the main character, what the plot is about in the most general way. All I got from it is that it takes place in london during ww2.

>>25314783
V. was okay, but I definitely prefer The Crying of Lot 49.
I like the feeling of paranoia it describes.

>>25314803
>who's the main character
Slothrop is the main character.
>what the plot is about in the most general way
"Some things that happen in Gravity's Rainbow" might be of interest to you: http://people.math.harvard.edu/~ctm/links/culture/rainbow.bell.html

I can’t do it either. Not now at least. It’s like he writes every sentence in reverse.

>>25314797
>Good riddance
He's still alive

>>25314803
There's a plot, but it's still being set up through the first book. It's a slow moving epic and shit's being set up

>>25314783
Stop taking pictures of old italian men snoozing in the Barnes & Noble coffee shop.

>>25314803
watch benjamin mcevoy's vid on it, it's great comes with no unannounced spoilers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmjFQ_-YUfI

>>25314803
There’s the occasional memorable moment here and there but man, is it a clusterfuck of a book. I went into the book without doing any sort of background work and there’s so many characters and no idea who is supposed to be remembered since they might only become relevant many many pages later. The main plot is different groups trying to find out about these V2 rockets but there’s just so much shit going on at the same time, the main plot is there but everything around it just diverges into all directions to explore, I don’t know, something.

>>25314803
>plot in the most general way
what could you not figure out from London, WW2, and the rocket on the cover

>>25314783
kek

>>25316997
I honestly can't comprehend why this is so praised. Make a 900 page book where only about 100 pages are really good? This only passed because the author is American. Can't see the public praising, let's say an Lithuanian writer, even if his book was 900/900 pages of excellence.

>>25318524
but anon, lithuanians cannot write?

>>25318524
I think there’s a fine line in any art between something a total novice would make and it would be viewed as schlock and what someone who is merited would do and it’s hailed genius. Like Sun Ra’s Atlantis album, it sounds like people who are playing instruments for the very first time but because at the time he was already established it’s viewed as some kind of brilliant masterpiece. Same for Captain Beefheart’s Trout mask replica album. Maybe people are too scared to call it shit out of fear of ”not getting it” or then I just don’t get them and I’m stupid.

>>25319576
>Same for Captain Beefheart’s Trout mask replica album
earlet detected. go listen to Radiohead or something more up your alley

>>25318524
Nearly every single page is excellent on a technical level, and the way everything's interconnected is mind-boggling. My initial impression of it was that it was chaotic, but as you start to connect the dots, as you piece the story together, the more brilliant the book seems to me. VERY looking forward to a reread.

>>25319576
TMR is one of my all-time favourite albums.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gZULn9R2Dk

>>25314783
Hits better when you’re in your 20s

>>25314815
Yeah me too. Lot 49 was my first Pynchon and one of my favourite books ever. The paranoia, the feeling of a conspiracy, the constant hints about the Thurn und Taxis scheme, Trystero, the play… it really made you feel like something bigger was hiding between the covers. The whole theme of communication and miscomunication. It was a revelation to me.

Then I tried V. Well, not for me. Didnt really get the rhythm or the themes; it even made me frustrated. M&D: confusing and weird. GR: wont even start with this. Didn’t finish neither of them.

Maybe Lot 49 is the only Pynchon for me. Sad because I really, really loved it. But really cant stand the others.

>>25318524
It makes more sense in the reread. Once everything shifts into place in your brain it reads like really well written genreslop.

>>25319626
I loved GR. At times it feels like a dark fairy tale; at times an investigation into the Occult, a slapstick comedy, a satire, a document by a paranoid schizophrenic. Tender, obscene, sentimental, grotesque, the whole range of human emotion.
But it's also true that it's difficult, confusing and just straight up bizarre. I don't think I would have liked it had I not suffered through the modernists beforehand. I was already used to the whole song and dance after going through Döblin, Faulkner, Joyce and the like. If you're a new reader, I recommend returning to the book after reading Ulysses.
>The paranoia, the feeling of a conspiracy, the constant hints about the Thurn und Taxis scheme, Trystero, the play… it really made you feel like something bigger was hiding between the covers.
Read the Manuscript Found in Saragossa. It has the same combination of physics, esotericism and conspiracy as Pynchon, but it has a much more approachable writing style. And depending on the version it's either more chaotic/nonlinear (1804) or clear and linear (1810).