Usually Pynchon doesn't do anything strait, it is always ironic.
So Inherent Vice nearly identical in a lot of ways to The Long Goodbye, screwball crime thrillers, west coast crime books except perhaps a post-modern version of it and a spoof.
I felt that Vineland was very much a spoof of northwest books like Kesey and Sometimes a Great Notion.
Mason & Dixon includes many different genres throughout.
But I'm confused as to what Bleeding Edge is doing? It is kind of detective stuff, and reminds me a lot of col49, but is it a send up of early 2000s novels or something? (I wouldn't know b/c I don't really read that kind of thing)
Also, what kind of genre/form would you like to see Pynchon do next?
It's Pynchon's cyberpunk book. Check out Gibson and Stephenson if you want to get what he's playing with. Probably has to do with why I liked this one even more than his others.
I'd like to see Pynchon do a Le Carre-ish spy novel. He has that one short story (which was later turned into a chapter of V.) but I want him to go farther.
It reminds me a little of GTA meets Gibson's Blue Ant books.
I don't think "Pynchon doesn't do anything straight" is accurate though. V, L49, GR are all pretty much their own things.
>>7861375
V is primarily a satire of the beats imo
>>7860889
>Usually Pynchon doesn't do anything strait, it is always ironic.
I don't think this is very fair or accurate.
>>7861424
The Whole Sick Crew is a parody of the beats, but I think it's wrong to call the whole book that or say none of it is played straight.
Gibson ripped Lot 49 with Pattern Recognition so Pynchon re-Pynchon'd Pattern Rec.
>>7861429
Agreed. Not sure what this even means. While you certainly found some similarities in genre, that doesn't mean Pynchon is necessarily mocking the genre, and it certainly doesn't mean that pynchon is *never* sincere. In fact, I found Mason & Dixon to be fairly unironic. The ending of the novel is genuine.
>>7861271
I picked up Bleeding Edge at a used book shop cheap and was intent on reading it soon - would you say it's worth reading some of this Cyberpunk as a necessary background to BE or can I appreciate it if I jump right in?
>>7861623
Totally unnecessary, but it'll be fun to read the other stuff later and see what Pynch was pulling from. I'd actually say having a lot of experience in the weirder parts of the internet is more necessary to "get" BE. (And you are on 4chan after all.)
>>7861623
Just read up on how Jews did 9/11.
>>7861271
thanks.
ive never read a thing of cyberpunk so had no idea that's what he's playing with.
what are some of the main cyber punk themes btw?
>>7861837
it's a combination of near-future sci-fi and hardboiled detective fiction, so you have a lot of character tropes from hardboiled (tough, intense private investigator, often an addict or alcoholic) in a similarly intense, harsh, uninviting near-future world. (the ur-text of cyberpunk, Gibson's Neuromancer, takes place mostly in Chiba, Japan). you have virtual reality as a major component of the setting and narrative - often seen as an escape from the harsh gritty real world. you often have some sort of a virtual reality-based heist of information, or some other sort of VR crime. corporations are more powerful than, or indistinguishable from governments, the (anti)hero is often set in opposition to them.
>>7861952
thanks
>>7861435
I think it goes a bit further than that, benny is a straight up beats protagonist and stencil is a kind of perversion of / antithesis to the same ideas.
I think the seriousness / sincerity in V is also in a way mocking the lackadaisical beats. He turns a movement that rejected meaning into characters put in meaningful situations.
>>7862166
Lmao
