ITT: Books that we have a love-hate relationship with.
Pic related. Some parts are vastly enjoyable and entertaining whereas others are downright painful and obnoxious. I have a feeling that Pynchon wrote the book with the deliberate intention of taking the reader on a roller coaster ride: from moments of great enjoyment to times when one just wants to throw the book into the trash. I have 150 pages left until the end and truly hope that he's decent enough to culminate the book on an upswing.
>from moments of great enjoyment to times when one just wants to throw the book into the trash.
Just like... the trajectory of a V2!
>>7441910
What bugs me about Pynchon are his characters. He doesn't have any outside of Mason & Dixon and maybe Inherent Vice.
They're all cartoonish and I have a super hard time following what they're doing and it gets annoying because characters are what I really love to read. Not prose, ideas, verse, just good characters and dialogue.
Which is what I love so much about Delillo. I guess some people feel cheated because he's not more experimental and obviously difficult but I don't see it.
Libra and Underworld are as good as anything by Pynchon imo. Similar themes but more character.
Infinite Jest, DFW in general
He was very important to me when I was 16, but I've come to be extremely annoyed by him as time has gone on. IJ is waaaay too long, with far too many superfluous parts gunking up the works.
The fact that he killed himself, when he was at a point in his life that all Authors dream of getting at, is indicative of his terrible character. He knew that if he killed himself, he could become immortal, which is certainly easier than writing a good followup novel. The Pale King could have been amazing, but instead, he took the red carpet to fame, off of his chair, into the noose.
What a loser.
>>7441942
>The fact that he killed himself, when he was at a point in his life that all Authors dream of getting at, is indicative of his terrible character.
A lot of people, including myself, get this impression. I think Franzen, too, bitched at a post-humous DWF. But I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't know what it was like for him.
That said, he was bordering on Nabokov/Bloom territory with his snotty opinions.
>>7441959
Nabokov and Bloom's snotty opinions are usually correct though. Franzen is not in their league whatsoever.
>>7441934
I agree with this. I like to develop some sort of meaningful attachment to at least one of the characters in a novel. This is not possible in a book where one can hardly keep up with all of the insane things that the characters are doing and thinking.
Also, I think that the cartoonish nature of it all was hilarious in the '70s, but to me now it just feels like overkill (e.g., the battle with the pies or faking a thick Italian accent).
>>7441934
I'm reading White Noise right now, and I think it's good and all but not nearly on the same level as Pynchon. I think Delillo is more appealing to the general audience because of his easier style and lighter prose.
>>7441942
What a stupid way to see his gesture.
You're judging him by your own parameters. Killing yourself for fear of being inadequate is what YOU would do, not him.
>>7441983
No, it's what he did. Why did he kill himself then?
"I was depressed :(" GTFO, he's in the woods of suicide now. Fitting.
>>7441910
I just read "The Story of Byron the Bulb". Bulb babies, bulb heaven, bulb cartel... What the fuck is this about? Is this supposed to be an allegory of some kind?
>>7442107
Good analysis here http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/gr/bsto.html
>>7441934
I think Pynchon's characters fall into place better on re-reads. They're never the focus of his writing, but when you're struggling less with the book to figure out just what the hell's going on, you start to see more of the characters revealed in more subtle actions.
