unironically why did he take 17 years off
What did Coca-Cola™ mean by this?
Work. Raise kids. Write. Watch cartoons. Travel.
#wow
#woah
he was a fuckin qt i tell ya what
>>8227074
Implying Thomas Pynchon doesn't eat all his children so they will never artistically surpass him
>>8227054
He didn't "take 17 years off", he spent 17 years writing. There were big gaps between many of his other novels too: 3, 7, 17, 7, 9, 3, and 4 years, in chronological order. And he released Slow Learner in 1984. He works on multiple novels at once. During that gap, he was writing Vineland of course, but also Mason and Dixon, Against the Day, and others.
But more importantly, this question has been answered many times and you're dense for asking it.
>>8227069
They were trying to say that incest is better than rape
>>8227099
>But more importantly, this question has been answered many times and you're dense for asking it.
too bad /lits/ archive sucks dick
>>8227099
Stop making excuses Pinecone
>>8227054
Why not dude
Wish people would stop calling every little even slightly serious thing they say "unironic"
>>8227128
itsa meme mayne
>>8227143
Then it's probalby the dumbest one. Yes... it's even worse than saying 'cuck"
>>8227107
i meant in general
you've spent too much time on this website
>>8227153
>>8227143
less meme, more obnoxious habit
Can you imagine the comedown of writing Gravity's Rainbow?? Seven or more years of your life devoted to writing a mind splitting surrealist epic of literary experimentation and radical politics? Apparently whilst on a fuck load of drugs? And then to have it sell well and revered as it was?
What could you do but enter some sort of paralysis? You've pretty much fulfilled the literary dream, you don't need to work for a long time, your head needs a rest, and you're pretty damn sure there's no way you'll ever top yourself artistically.
Honestly, he probably took a year off, got some cushy editing job, started a family, and put his feet up.
How did he sustain himself before he made it big? I want to know his process he's too fucking secretive.
>>8227054
He writes multiple books together, strangely. He was almost certainly working on Mason & Dixon, Against the Day, Bleeding Edge, and Inherent Vice during that time.
>>8227187
He worked at Boeing and was in the Navy. Are you functionally retarded?
>>8227187
I think he worked in advertising briefly with Richard Farina, too
>>8227193
Wati a minute.. he couldn't have been writing Bleeding Edge before 2001
I would trade my fucking soul to know the things pynchon knows. just to live 1 day with his mind and try to copy his work ethic or whatever he has going for him. it can't be just natural gift he knows something
>>8227203
If you read Slow Learner and some of his letters to editors and friends he seems very critical of his own writing and unsure of what makes it 'work'
chalk it up to fluke
getting high and watching TV
DBZ, Godzilla, The Brady Bunch, Gilligan's Island and many more. you see it peppered in his later work.
>>8227203
He's researched a lot about occultism and conspiracy theories/conspiratorial versions of history, that much is obvious from his writings.
Check out:
Aleister Crowley
Eliphas Levi
P.D. Ouspensky
G.I. Gurdjieff
H.P. Blavatsky
Jung
Freud
Manly P. Hall
Books in general about Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, secret societies, etc...
>>8227232
Thomas Pynchon has confirmed played Metal Gear Solid.
>>8227237
which one and did he like it?
>>8227240
There is an offhanded Metal Gear reference or two in BE
That's about as much a confirmation of him playing it as the Furbee namedrop is that he has Furbees
>>8227203
pynchon himself doesn't even know, dude
>>8227241
He probably had a Furby when they were popular. I mean, who didn't?
>>8227250
here is the new sincerity, my friends. what a paragraph. no wonder so many people think his newer works are trash, they've become accustomed to the shit he's been shovelling for so long, now they don't want anything else, and suddenly he has a stroke of conscience for all he has wrought, and wants to write with conventionality and order, and it's too late, all far too late. even if this isn't candid, it's beautiful.
>>8227250
His feelings got hurt by some normie writers and he smushed the energy that made him good.
Sad
>>8227250
where is this letter from?
>>8227359
I got it from a /lit/ thread a while ago. Some anon from UT found some of Pynchon's published letters in their library and posted it. This letter was written shortly after he released V.
Is it weird that Pynchon is exactly what I always imagined Yossarian would look like?
>>8227371
after V. huh? that's odd, especially with what came after!
>>8227202
unless...
>>8227110
Why not? Why not?Why not not, then, if the best reasoning you can contrive is why not?
>>8227099
t. Pynchon
>>8227588
:^)
>>8227069
>Coca-Cola™
Pynchons my fav writer for sure because my fav thing in books is goofs, gags, jokes and rambunctious behavior, and his books are full to the brim of it. Every novel is like one of those novelty snake cans, you open the book & 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 whats he gonna do next, this trickster, and you pick the book back up and BZZZZZZZZZZ you get a shock and Hahahahahah 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 into his mouth and displays em for you- left, right, center- "you like dese? 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 appears again hauling a huge golden gong.
>>8227099
>He works on multiple novels at once.
source?
>>8228493
I unironically dislike Pynchon for the same reasons.
>>8228544
His letters to his editors, you can Google them .
He worked in lot and v at same time and started GR During v.
In later letters he talks about working in M&d some days and against others etc.
>>8227054
>Through recent investigative research using state of the art methodology and fragments of contemporary TV guides it has been surmised that the period in which Pynchon took 17 years off nearly perfectly coincided with what is now widely deemed by historical experts as the famous "Golden Age" of cartoons.
>>8227500
He never really did master the art of suspense though
>>8227128
You have been found out. Why would anyone want us to stop saying "unironic" unironically.
>>8228656
well this is a literature board
>>8227054
>Implying this thread isn't just Pynchon posting to have others justify wasting years of his life
>>8228731
Where's your MacArthur grant, anon?
>>8227250
As someone who could not for the life of me summon the desire to finish Gravity's Rainbow, this letter explains exactly why.
he should stick to short story, TCoL49 was far less offensive.
i finished reading all the books in this chart along with the greeks
am i ready for pinch chin now?
>>8227241
There are a ton of vidya references in BE, it was brilliant. I love the idea of this MacArthur Grant winner sitting down and playing video games and watching cartoons.
The Dragonball reference at the Halloween party impressed me. How many men in their eighties could do that? Even Don Delillo doesn't resort to that type of thing in White Noise.
He was working on Mason & Dixon when he started V. and Gravity's Rainbow.
The REAL question is, why the Navy stint?
>>8227099
finish your book you fucking hippie.
>>8228854
>When Lucas, one of the designers of a Second Life–like virtual world, cites his influences as “Neo-Tokyo from Akira, Ghost in the Shell, [and] Metal Gear Solid by Hideo Kojima, or as he’s known around my crib, God,”
kek
>>8228814
sure
>>8228814
If you have to ask
you're not
>>8227326
>>8227338
>>8227359
>>8227371
It's from very early in his career.
He goes on to talk a lot about how he's going through a big Borges kick and how he's become obsessed with labyrinths lately. Particularly the story "The Two Kings and The Two Labyrinths" from Borges' El Aleph.
Then some other stuff.
I have the rest of them, if you want.
is it even possible to make a living writing books the way pynchon did. i feel they wouldn't sell at all these days
>>8229034
Like all things, writing's changing. Adapt. Your stories and ideas, if worth it, will find an audience.
>>8229025
I want.
>>8229093
Okay. I don't have them in order. I'll post following this. There are 8 images total.
>>8229093
>>8229093
2
>>8227054
Because he ain't gay like you, bitch.
>>8229093
3
Sorry, I don't know why the orientation is off. They're fine in my computer.
>>8229093
4
>>8229093
5
>>8229093
6
>>8229093
7
>>8229093
8
thank you, anon. thank you.
>>8229167
No problem.
thanks to the kind anon
>>8229163
wonderful
>>8227128
"Unironic" is the 4chan equivilant of tumblr's "literally".
>>8229122
>so with time machine and slide rule he journeyed back and talked the king of Norway into appointing an official census taker and asking his subjects embarrassing questions about outdoors toilets, and such
>>8227237
I refuse to believe there is a universe in which Tommy hasn't played MGS2, it was basically tailor made for him.
>>8231030
He just watches let's plays.
>ywn see an adaptation of Inherent Vice made by Shane Black
>>8232384
thank god
>>8232384
thats a good thing
>>8227093
>eat all his children so they will never artistically surpass him
Has any author's children ever surpassed them? Ever? Even mediocre authors outshine their spawn.
>>8228822
>Even Don Delillo doesn't resort to that type of thing in White Noise.
EVEN DON DELILLO
>>8228868
>as he’s known around my crib, God
Is it really hard for you guys to believe that a spergy twentysomething early 2000's programmer might say something like this?
>>8233371
Martin Amis maybe
>>8233416
it's believable, but there's still no reason to write like that
>>8228133
lel
I love how you have to put "unironically" before asking a basic question.
>>8227241
"Metal Gear Solid by Hideo Kojima, or as he’s known in my crib, God."
I'd finished GR a few weeks ago and was going to make Mason and Dixon the next Pynchon I read but I can't pass this up.
>>8227054
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>>8234207
I don't like you.
>>8235604
well then I don't like you either
>>8227054
>tfw you were born on time to live through the final years of the GOAT
>>8227250
It just seems to me that (in this letter) Pynchon is trying to be something he is not, based only on misguided notions about what a novel "should be" or "should do". But his best bits are when at he is the most Pynchonian and the least like standard novelists.
>>8227054
Because he could.
>>8233371
Mary Shelley is a lot better than Mary Wollstonecraft IMO.
>>8233371
There are plenty of great writers whose parents were also writers, but who aren't read any more.
>>8237579
Such as?
>>8227054
Because he spent the prime of his life writing Gravity's Meme, Mason and Dixon, and Vineland simultaneously.
>>8228868
Also:
>“Cultural exchange, I notice they’ve got you playing Metal Gear Solid these days.”
>“Ask your kids. Look at Metal Gear Solid—who do the terrorists kidnap? Who’s Snake trying to rescue? The head of DARPA. Think about that, huh?”
>>8228814
Wait. I went in way too early and so much went straight over my head, save it and you'll appreciate it more
>>8228868
>>8237853
>mfw Kojima and Pynchon team up for a new game
>>8233371
John Berryman
>>8239265
i would ironically kill myself out of pure excitement if that ever happened.
>>8240810
That would be a pretty stupid reaction anon.
>>8242347
Depends. How many layers of irony are you on right now?
>>8242354
1337
