>>7418929
I started with the Greeks, so everything has become clear.

>>7418929
Use supplementary materials or take extra time to decipher confusing sections. Don't expect to understand all of it without any effort: Pynchon is much, much smarter than you, and figuring out what he means is part of the fun.

>>7418942

>Pynchon is much, much smarter than you

This may be the case, but it's unfair to suggest a fluid comparison between acquisition (in the case of the reader) and Pynchon's presumably long-premeditated thought that he eventually puts down to print.

This is usually the case for any dense literature, it takes time to ingest such things. The writer doesn't just fluently surge through the process, so the reader probably won't either.

>>7418929
It's not going over your head, he's just starting up threads and plot lines and abandoning them as a huge fuck you to plot

>>7418929
Lot 49 isn't that sophisticated if you know much about the underground political history of that era. Read up on MKULTRA, anti-subversive operations, the beginnings of the psychedelic movement, and Pynchon's own life, then remember that it's not all supposed to become 100% coherent anyway.

Pinecone's thought strictly serves an aesthetic end. It doesn't matter 'what he means'. spoiler alert

>tfw don't know shit about history or STEM

Anyone have the pic of the GR editions and their covers?

>>7419046
Not true at all, with the exception of V. Pynchon wrote about seriously shady and concerning stuff with regard to the military-industrial complex, intelligence agencies having their own agendas changing gender roles, the alteration of the historical record offer time, and the battles and cooperation a between subversives and the government at the outset of the psychedelic era.

Purely aesthetic my ass.

you've putting pynchon on too much of a pedestal, especially with lot 49
just enjoy it, it's supposed to be funny.

also the band they hang out with is the beatles.

>>7418964

This. Also, I thought Pinecone confessed that he used to literally look into fact books to write shit so that he would seem smarter.

Go to bed Garrett

>>7419543
Real talk, OP. (also what makes you say they were the beatles?)
The sort of 2deep4u vibe is part of the experience.
And most of it gets wrapped up in a pretty surface level way by the end. Not all of it, but the bigger points. Just have faith.

But yeah, the scene with the play totally threw me for a loop on my first read through. I read it a couple times as best as I could but I still had to keep going back to it when the plot would reference things about it.

The big problem I had was that I kept thinking I was supposed to know what the Trystero was. But you actually aren't really until the end.

You cannot become good at running if all you do is walk. Only by trying and struggling to run can you reach any modicum of improvement. Likewise, you cannot become more intelligent as a reader by reading books that are already completely intelligible to you.

>>7418942
TCoL49 isn't that hard to read. The opening sentence is beautiful and the jucity goodness just flows on from there. Not to mention, his references (outside of the whole postal history stuff which is barmy greatness) isn't too obscure, the stuff about Maxwell's demon comes up a lot in other author's works: pretty sure Tom Stoppard's Arcadia talks about it.

Don't be discouraged if you don't get him just yet however, I've always thought that was half the point to his writings - the vague, not-quite-sure feeling of paranoid conspiracies just floating over the characters and text is so wonderful; you should get wrapped up in it too.

>>7418929
an dfw