I wrote my undergrad thesis on Gravity's Rainbow and the book has stuck with me more than perhaps any other. It's a post-modern retelling of Ulysses, for one, but not just that. It's a post-apocalyptic novel but also a novel incredibly concerned with reconstruction following WWII. It's a critique of industrialization, but also a critique of the pop movements resisting industrialization.
It's the most difficult book I've ever read--took me several months to work through. But I treat it similarly to how Finnegans Wake should be treated: don't try to understand everything, but rather find something on every page you can relate to or appreciate.
> It's the most difficult book I've ever read--took me several months to work through. But I treat it similarly to how Finnegans Wake should be treated: don't try to understand everything, but rather find something on every page you can relate to or appreciate.
This is excellent advice, especially for Gravity's Rainbow - I'm certain that a lot of the novel went over my head, but I think even if I'd understood all the references and concepts explored, this is a book that I still wouldn't fully grasp. It actively resists being understood.
I still loved it and got a ton of value out of reading it. There are brilliant sections of prose, amazing imagery, hilarious jokes, and concepts that I think back on all the time.
It took me several aborted attempts to finally finish the thing, because I kept losing the thread, and the logical part of my brain wanted to understand everything. Once I gave up on that and accepted that sometimes I just couldn't understand what was happening or what the relevance of a section was, the book became easier to read, and much more enjoyable.
despite the fact that by reading a text you are actually rewriting it (i.e., borges: "All men who repeat a line from Shakespeare are William Shakespeare"), maybe reading should be like listening to music: to let it flow through you, at least for the first few readings or so, and then, if you wish, read with a more critical eye
e.g., from finnegan's wake: "The siss of the whisp of the sigh of the sowftzing at the stir of the ver grossO arundo of a long one to midias reeds; and shaes began to glidder along the banks, greepsing, greepsing,duusk unto duusk, and it was sas glooming as gloaming could be in the wst of all peacable worlds."
> maybe reading should be like listening to music:
Massumi's introduction to his translation of A Thousand Plateaus (selected paragraphs by me, it's a lot longer than just this of course):
> This is a book that speaks of many things, of ticks and quilts and fuzzy subsets and noology and political economy. It is difficult to know how to approach it. What do you do with a book that dedicates an entire chapter to music and animal behavior—and then claims that it isn't a chapter? That presents itself as a network of "plateaus" that are precisely dated, but can be read in any order? That deploys a complex technical vocabulary drawn from a wide range of disciplines in the sciences, mathematics, and the humanities, but whose authors recommend that you read it as you would listen to a record?
> Which returns to our opening question. How should A Thousand Plateaus be played? When you buy a record there are always cuts that leave you cold. You skip them. You don't approach a record as a closed book that you have to take or leave. Other cuts you may listen to over and over again. They follow you. You find yourself humming them under your breath as you go about your daily business.
> The question is not: is it true? But: does it work? What new thoughts does it make it possible to think? What new emotions does it make it possible to feel? What new sensations and perceptions does it open in the body? The answer for some readers, perhaps most, will be "none." If that happens, it's not your tune. No problem. But you would have been better off buying a record.
Reading can (and should!) serve many purposes. I, for one, don’t really like the experiential reading mode. Poetry is fine, but for most books I want to understand it intellectually.
(Not a criticism, just a refinement of what you said)
reminds me of roland barthes' conception of readerly (straightforward; reaffirms our ideology/offers no transgressions) versus writerly (complex; requires some leap/myth busting) texts
As far as Joyce goes, I haven't read Ulysses. Dubliners, however was very approachable and enjoyable. It's is a collection of descriptive short stories of people in turn of the century Ireland. The final story, "The Dead" is haunting.
Dubliners is a great little book. Probably the most approachable Joyce? He’s just playing with sounds and rhythms and images. The characters are interesting too but what I got from it was a lot of experimental and playful descriptions.
This is very silly. I don’t think private correspondences ought to be held to the same standards as a writer’s published fiction; even bringing them up is nonsensical.
Beyond that, I’d encourage you to look up the definition of “puerile”, which is as much about being juvenile or silly as it is about sexual or scatological - say what you will about those letters or Joyce (or Nora’s!) particular fetishes, there’s nothing that suggests that they weren’t in earnest.
As a sibling comment at least alludes to, it’s much fairer to point out that Ulysses has plenty of its own sexual or scatological humour, and that someone might easily describe it as puerile. And fair enough; as to why it doesn’t personally strike me that way compared to Pynchon, all I’ll do is rest on the de gustibus defense.
I was grinding through Finnegans wake. Took ages! Dropped my book on the floor of the train one day and the bookmark fell out. Worst day of my life, I couldn't find out where I was up to and just gave up and stopped reading it.
That seems like a fine argument for writing in books--just flip forward until the marks run out. And actually, based on my own long-ago (and very brief) experience with FW, I can't imagine reading it without marking it up.
I think it's worth trying again--it has a story, but its plot structure is in direct conversation/opposition to the modernists, so it's looser, more chaotic, and more deconstructed. As such, I read GR forcing myself to let go of the pressure to comprehend the plot and rather to focus on the impressions the book was imparting on me.
I like challenging books but found Gravity's Rainbow annoying and tedious, although I made it to the end. I got halfway through Mason & Dixon before giving up. I figured Bleeding Edge would be better because it's about computers, but it wasn't. So my recommendation is if you don't enjoy Pynchon's books, don't read them :-)
That's interesting, I tried Gravity's Rainbow on audiobook and came to a conclusion that written copy would be better due to sheer amount of detail and different characters. I'm no stranger to large tomes (tackled GR right after getting through Infinite Jest audiobook), but it was the first one I gave up on about a quarter to a third in. At one point I realized that I'm really not enjoying the process and barely following the storyline. Maybe will try again in ten years.
Every few months I check out the library's audiobook copy of Gravity's Rainbow and listen to the first chapter or so while running errands, then give up. I've heard a lot of the banana breakfast :)
I read the first few chapters of the book then skimmed and read some more. Pretty grim stuff in there...
This book is my white whale. I read "V" straight to the end in a few sittings and love it and think about it a lot when I'm in NYC or the eastern seaboard or Malta or Florence. I read "The Crying of Lot 49" straight through in one go and loved its paranoid charm.
But despite having lived in London and thought a lot about what it was like for people there during the war I just can't finish Gravity's Rainbow. Maybe a real life reading group or something would help.
> Maybe a real life reading group or something would help.
This is what it took for me - having a few other people agreeing to a schedule and meeting to talk about what we had read. I ultimately very much enjoyed GR but it is really difficult to read alone for the first time. Both the social pressure to keep at it and the ability to have "what the hell was that" conversations with other people really helped.
(My father's favorite author is Pynchon, so while he slightly prefers Mason & Dixon to GR, it's been in my awareness for a very long time; I think my first attempt was in my teens and I didn't succeed at finishing until my mid twenties)
I love Infinite Jest with all my heart, and I also tried to read GR shortly after as I was on a “big book” kick (had also read Underworld in the same time period and loved that too).
Gave up on GR after about 200 or so pages realizing I couldn’t ultimately describe a single thing I had read.
I really want to finish it at some point but I also want to enjoy it. Maybe at a different point in life.
It would be interesting to listen to the book where the narrator does a different voice for every character, since so often the character speaking (and also the time and location) changes somewhere in the middle of the sentence and it is up to the reader to figure out when. I bet there are a lot of different opinions as to where it happened and how much overlap there is.
first third was the most difficult and least rewarding section on my first (and so far only) read. I literally finished it, realized I understood exactly none of it, and restarted the book. Took me 6 months to read the entirety of GR (I was taking my time with notes and references and such) and it was entirely worth it.
I must have missed this in my reading. Who parallels Stephen or Leo or Molly? Tyrone didn't seem to be to be in search of a father figure or a father figure in search of a son. I enjoyed both books but must have missed the ways in which GR is a post-modern retelling of Ulysses (I saw the post-modern part). It sounds like you've spent a lot more time with it so I'm curious how you saw it.
Ulysses parallels The Odyssey, which is also a father and son story. I understand how those books are connected. I'm not sure that I understand how GR is a post-modernist retelling of either. Seems like I'm missing something so I'd love to understand in what way GR is related to either.
Perhaps I snuck in a bit of a hot take I had when doing my thesis ;) I find that GR’s cadence and vibe follow Ulysses; the psyche deconstruction that occurs alongside physical meandering through mundane locations are so similar (to me) as to be inescapable.
Sure. I think GR was probably heavily influenced by Joyce and Ulysses specifically. I don't think it's a hot take. I just don't know that I personally would characterize it as a re-telling. GR even goes as far as having mixed format story telling (lots of songs/lyrics in GR) which feels a lot like what Joyce was doing with each chapter of Ulysses (but GR is much less extreme there and isn't as obviously experimental with completely different prose styles or text styles). I think there's a reason why they're often compared and considered the Modernist and Post-Modernist books that define each category.
Motorboats are for people who want to get to the destination, Sailboats are for people who want to enjoy the journey.
It's funny though, James Bond books don't illicit the same ire that Pynchon does and I'd argue the two are very similar - reading between the lines, that is. As another reader mentioned GR was just "yet another scene ending in kinky sex or the characters getting inebriated".
I don't have much of substance to add as I haven't read Gravity's Rainbow yet. Except perhaps that Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino already held the same spot in my mind's eye as the last sentence of your comment. Not difficult like the other two, but seemingly similarly composed and having a similar mark left upon me.
Having read the Odyssey and Ulysses, I don't exactly see it. Slothrop leaves no wife and child, and does not return to family. There are aspects of the Odyssey in it, I guess, the irresistibility of the main character, the ready sacrifice of bit players--but one could say the same of Star Trek.
> It's a post-modern retelling of Ulysses, for one, but not just that. It's a post-apocalyptic novel but also a novel incredibly concerned with reconstruction following WWII. It's a critique of industrialization, but also a critique of the pop movements resisting industrialization.
I've noticed most modern classics that people describe as being about a bunch of themes are usually absurdly overrated.
Most of the really great books, people describe, "It's about this character who..."
Not, "It's a commentary on..."
The first type of book is good, the second type of book usually just panders to an audience and MFAs...
How would you describe works of Douglas Adams, Pratchett, Gaiman? The question you refer to discloses more the disposition of a person, but not really the quality of the book.
It's the most difficult book I've ever read--took me several months to work through. But I treat it similarly to how Finnegans Wake should be treated: don't try to understand everything, but rather find something on every page you can relate to or appreciate.