How "difficult" is this?
I was able to make it through Ulysses fine (except Oxen of the Sun. Fuck that chapter). I don't want to be reading a plot summary of every chapter when I finish them.
>>8253097
But does meme=bad?
Ask urself that m8
>>8253105
What did you think of IJ
>>8253097
but I love memes
>>8253067
first 500 pages is to weed out the plebs
>>8253109
Not as good as GR but still man, a great meme nonetheless.
>>8253067
The argument itself is quite twisted, and then there's the prose. It certainly is not fluent or easy to read, bit it is not difficcult for obscurity's sake. I think it's an amazingly rich and gratifying read, so it's worth a little effort. I'm currently rereading the novel justo to enjoy the prose. Some passages and pages have such lyrism and beauty that resemble long poems, and I'd put it up there with the greats of the 20th century. Don't listen to the memeists.
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.
>>8253067
>I don't want to be reading a plot summary of every chapter when I finish them.
does GR even have chapters? I picked it up once and it didn't seem to have any from flipping through it
>>8253097
meme, yes
waste of time, no
>>8253193
It has sections that are separated, I guess you could call those chapters.
>>8253193
It has four sections and plenty of breaks within those sections demarcated with blocks, like this:
□ □ □ □ □ □ □
It's not as hard as people say it is, but you really shouldn't take more than weeklong breaks from it since nearly everything is tightly interwoven and you'll need to remember a lot of names, places, ideas, other stuff. It's the most fun I've had reading since I was a kid, you'll love it.
>>8253227
kindle user?
>>8253227
nah, Penguin Classics, the one with the V2 blueprint
>>8253067
The only hard part of the Pynch is his obscure, unconventional prose. Other than that he usually goes out of his way to make sure you can understand his point provided you can keep up with his diction.
If you can handle something as obscure as Ulysses, then you shouldn't have a problem with GR. Although i'd recommend reading Entropy and perhaps The Secret Integration first, as it can clear up a lot of confusion and are both really short
>>8253067
Just read it and remember to have fun.
Especially part 3, it's very funny and crazy. Don't forget to try and read some of it whileDUDE WEED LMAOING(and then go back and reread that section).
>>8253067
It's a riot. Tremendously fun and featuring some of the best writing in the English language. Not terribly difficult, but improves significantly upon rereading.
Not sure if it's high art though. Strikes me that this book in 100 years will sound like Vanity Fair does now: very funny, dense, stiflingly overstuffed with obscure, forgotten material-historical references and ultimately pointless. If Thackeray teaches us nothing and only shows us a sociopath, Pynchon is about the same. Sure he's making statements about metaphysics in a post cause and effect world heralded by the rocket, but it's hard to tell what the point of the book is beyond "shit's crazy."
I read it as a teen and enjoyed it, but certainly didn't get it. If/when I reread it, I'll pay much less attention to the plot, and just have a good time- that seems like a better way to approach GR.
>>8253779
From Wikipedia:
>Also notable among the later novels is The History of Henry Esmond, in which Thackeray tried to write a novel in the style of the eighteenth century, a period that held great appeal for him. Not only Esmond but also Barry Lyndon and Catherine are set in that period, as is the sequel to Esmond, The Virginians, which takes place in North America and includes George Washington as a character who nearly kills one of the protagonists in a duel.
Not only does Thackeray have a GR equivalent, in his later years he wrote his equivalent of M&D.
(((Coincidence?)))
>>8253067
>How "difficult" is this?
I found it more difficult than Ulysses to be honest. In fact, I found GR almost unreadable and I admit I gave up around page 250. I guess I'm a pleb. I still like Pynchon though. Loved Mason and Dixon.
Ulysses was more difficult for me since the prose is really fucking irish sounding, and the references to parnell/irish history/culture/dublin geography were more difficult to handle without the annotations handy
