>>8267005
What exactly did you not like about V.

I saw V for what it was which was a dumping ground for his short stories. I thought it was enjoyable.

Maybe you're a pretentious faggot who hates fun. In that case you still have the hope of enjoying GR a lot more

they are

>>8267032
Nah i love fun, it's just really difficult to get through sometimes, I really loved the little sewer story, but I dunno. There are parts that just feel like they're shock value for the sake of shock value, no build up or deeper connections, like the girl that got raped by the entire regiment and chose both the bayonet and the gun. It just felt like shock value instead of say in The Recogs, like the climax with Janet and the bull, there's horror and shock there, but everything led up to it, it wasn't just tossed in for me to say "woah, that's fucked". I just wanted a little more out of Pynchon, I know it's one of his much earlier works, so I figure he has a lot to grow in his work and interconnectivity.

>>8267047
There was plenty of thematic buildup to it. The earlier Stencil parts skirted around the violence and depravity of the times he was trying to trace with his "impressions" but they all deal with revolutions or turmoil of one sort or another and by that point the romantic veneer of these visions was wearing thin, revealing some of the self-evident insanity creeping behind the accepted version of history and in Stencil/his entire "quest". This wasn't sudden at all.

>>8267047
i love fun too, i my favorite thing in books is goofs, gags, jokes, and overall rambunctious behavior. Thomas Pynchon is basically my fave author because his books are full to the brim with this.

How do M&D and GR compare to Gaddis' work (J R, Recognitions, etc)? Easier, harder, about the same?

>>8267227
i dunno, that's what i'm trying to figure out.

>>8267129
i dunno, did you read the recognitions and see the web that tied that climax all together? all the tripwires that started at the very beginning that eventually transformed and became clear?

>>8267005
Let's put it this way: it's entirely possible to dislike V. and yet find what you're looking for in GR. There are thematic links, but GR has a different kind of coherence to it. Not the same fun either, and not the same tone.
And then M&D is yet a different sort of book compared to those two. Has more of a guiding thread.

>>8267005
pynchon is mildly embarrassing and cringe to read after gaddis. that won't change.

>>8267361
The Recognitions is chronologically and temporally linear and compact. It's also longer by a fair bit. Pynchon plays things more loosely than Gaddis does. Gaddis may omit, gloss over, or obfuscate details but he always paints a clear, complete, and coherent picture by the end of each book; you can always connect the dots, as it were. Pynchon keeps even the big picture fairly vague.

This doesn't make one better than the other, it's just a stylistic difference that came about through the divergence in their experiences and influences. All postmodern literature deals with some degree of ambiguity, but there are different forms and levels of it. Pynchon's style is what I'd consider a midpoint between the cohesive pointillism of Gaddis and the near-total to complete disregard for logically consistent form of Hawkes.

>>8267218
gong

>>8267373
>>8267460
great answers, thank you. i do really wish to enjoy Pynchon, and I'm hoping that I'll appreciate it more when I move on to his larger books, I just wondered if V. was going to be indicative of his oeuvre, I can live through it, I'm sure, I guess it was unfair of me to compare him to Gaddis, but I can't really help it, since he was the last I read. I guess it's shame on me for starting with the best and going backwards. I'll have to be more careful of that next time. Besides, there are plenty of masterpieces still left to enjoy. I'm sure Pynchon shat out one somewhere along the way.

Also, is there anything similar to Gaddis I may have missed?

>>8267005
I didn't absolutely hate V. like you did, but I'm currently at the beginning of part 3 of Gravity's Rainbow and I'm enjoying it more than V., to be honest.

Something that I really enjoy about Pynchon's writing is the way he can crawl under your skin sometimes. Certain parts of Gravity's Rainbow and V. definitely had that disturbing factor in it that just gave me chills.

>>8267563
I wouldn't say I hate V. I just was a bit disappointed and want something better, I want something a lot better from him.

>>8267608
How much Gaddis have you read?

>>8267622
I'm going to read J R after I finish V., which should be in a couple of days. I'm considering buying the rest of his work, or at least getting it on my kindle. the guy's a damned genius.

>>8267640
lol

For all this talk about how great you think he is, I thought you've read his entire oeuvre. Don't get me wrong, I think he's great, but if you expect all of his books to be like The Recognitions, you're in for a rude awakening. His style from J R and on is practically nothing like what you saw in The Recognitions. You might even come to hate him once you see what J R is like.

>>8267649
I don't expect that at all, I do however know that you can't erase genius, you can't just get rid of it. I've read a few excerpts of J R, gotten an appreciation for the difference of style, and I know that I will love it. I can't wait to see the humor unleashed in him, honestly, but you can't look at The Recognitions and doubt for a second that the book was leaps and bounds over V., and that regardless if I never read another book by Gaddis again, that an appreciation for that single novel is really enough to garner a desire for more novels like it, or cut of the same brilliance. Don't worry, I just look ahead, my friend. I look ahead.

>>8267674
You should consider the fact that The Recognitions was in the works for the better part of a decade while V. didn't take nearly as long to write. It's like comparing Ulysses to The Broom of The System or some shit.

>>8267714
Oh I know, i did say that it was unfair to compare V. to The Recognitions. I'm just going to give Pynchon more time and learn to appreciate him for him. It's no biggie or anything.

>>8267737
>It's no biggie or anything
Could've fooled me. Your OP was very melodramatic.

>>8267756
well, I do have the capacity to change and soften my opinion and learn new perspectives, anon.