Difficult, Dated, Frustrating, Prophetic – Teaching Thomas Pynchon(themillions.com)
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Difficult, Dated, Frustrating, Prophetic – Teaching Thomas Pynchon
http://www.themillions.com/2015/04/difficult-dated-frustrating-prophetic-teaching-thomas-pynchon.html
3 comments
Thomas Pynchon is everything that's wrong with postmodernism. I get that he's difficult and I get that he's creating an internal system of signs but come the fuck on, already. It's literature to prove a point. It's the problem with assholes like Derrida who drone on endlessly in what is—has got to be—a massive practical joke/performance art project.
And that's, in its own way, _awesome_. The problem is that people take it seriously. People read the tea leaves of these chaotic texts and derive their own meaning (which means they're falling for the ruse). I have a deep problem with post modernism in literature and elsewhere because of the nature of the joke. It's a virulent meme that has made both art and literature indigestible and that's a shame.
Markets sort of win out and we get real art from television and popular entertainment these days. It's just sad that the legacy of postmodernism is a sort of flypaper trap for minds that would have been put to much better use elsewhere.
And that's, in its own way, _awesome_. The problem is that people take it seriously. People read the tea leaves of these chaotic texts and derive their own meaning (which means they're falling for the ruse). I have a deep problem with post modernism in literature and elsewhere because of the nature of the joke. It's a virulent meme that has made both art and literature indigestible and that's a shame.
Markets sort of win out and we get real art from television and popular entertainment these days. It's just sad that the legacy of postmodernism is a sort of flypaper trap for minds that would have been put to much better use elsewhere.
I've only read The Crying of Lot 49 and Bleeding Edge, but I love both of those books. I didn't find either particularly difficult to get through, even though they are long and dense with syntax. The stories themselves are still really engaging and hilarious. I guess it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I've certainly read books I've found to be way more tedious.
I read Pynchon, because his books are fun.
This.
Bleeding Edge is full of laugh out louds - and possibly of some minor interest to HN.
Bleeding Edge is full of laugh out louds - and possibly of some minor interest to HN.
I will always appreciate the core of Gravity's Rainbow being "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me" by Richard Farina. That was cool, no matter how jokey and convoluted the work was.
In a similar vein I don't get these people that lionize Salk or Newton. Isaac's physics isn't relevant. Now that we have quantum mechanics what purpose is there in studying the process, people, materials and mechanics of a bygone era? Give me my atomic bomb and penicillin but Lord! Spare me the tiresome explanations. What value could there be in that fool Einstein's physical works? Burn it with the Rossetti archives and smother the ashes with Jerry Mcgann's tears.
(excuse me, I'm off to play call of duty with people who understand games are supposed to be fun not make you think.)
(excuse me, I'm off to play call of duty with people who understand games are supposed to be fun not make you think.)
I've never had a more wonderful reading experience than "Gravity's Rainbow". Your words seem hollow and noisy by comparison.
I'm sorry, the first sentence of The Crying of Lot 49 may be long – somewhat run-on – but it's not really at all difficult to understand. After running into that misstatement, I'm not sure I want to read much more. After the author then throws out the $20 word "profluence" (which wiktionary calls obsolete or rare) where "flow" or nothing at all would serve at least as well, I become convinced of it.
Which is not at all to say that the novel is not worth reading, and rereading.
Which is not at all to say that the novel is not worth reading, and rereading.
It isn't described as "difficult to understand" but "labyrinthine and recursive: full of noise", and that's an accurate description:
"One summer afternoon, Mrs. Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary."
This is loaded with irrelevancies (full of noise) no matter what the "single thought" it is supposed to convey might be. If it's about her role as executor, why the detail about the kirsch in the fondue at the garden party? If it's about the garden party, why the anecdote about the loss of two million dollars?
And given that "profluence" is a term specifically associated with Gardner, it is no surprise that an essay that opens by discussing Gardner's opinions should use it. It doesn't mean "flow" but rather the way in which fiction actively draws us forward in a continuous waking dream.
"One summer afternoon, Mrs. Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary."
This is loaded with irrelevancies (full of noise) no matter what the "single thought" it is supposed to convey might be. If it's about her role as executor, why the detail about the kirsch in the fondue at the garden party? If it's about the garden party, why the anecdote about the loss of two million dollars?
And given that "profluence" is a term specifically associated with Gardner, it is no surprise that an essay that opens by discussing Gardner's opinions should use it. It doesn't mean "flow" but rather the way in which fiction actively draws us forward in a continuous waking dream.
There's a lot of characterization going on in that sentence.
A tupperware party: Oedipa's social circle consists of housewives who lack financial independence or grand ambitions.
Too much kirsch in the fondue: the tupperware business is distinctly secondary to an excuse to get a bit drunk with friends, which tells us a bit more about her social cohort.
to find that she, Oedipa: her role in this story is thrust upon her from the very first sentence, in contrast to the the passive drift suggested above.
She supposed executrix: Oedipa is la little pendantic, not to mention well-educated, although we should already have guessed that from her upper-class name.
Pierce Inverarity: Inverarity is a remote village in Scotland (and a very nice one too; I've driven through it several times, but that won't be on the test). We may suspect that the late Mister Inverarity was a typical Scottish penny pincher...
once lost two million dollars in is spare time: ...or maybe not. This will be a whimsical story that confounds out expectations.
more than honorary: Oedipa must have a certain level of professional competence to have been selected for this task.
Besides all this, don't neglect the more poetic aspects of the language - the rhythm, alliteration, internal rhyming and shifting subjective clauses are engaging, the word combinations euphonious. I find Pynchon a pleasure to read despite the lack of plot or clear narrative motion. He has voice, bringing in sense of children's stories with their odd givens, the mild daytime drunkenness, the sense of having been selected for a task bigger than one might have chosen for oneself.
As you can guess, I'm personally rather fond of this book :)
A tupperware party: Oedipa's social circle consists of housewives who lack financial independence or grand ambitions.
Too much kirsch in the fondue: the tupperware business is distinctly secondary to an excuse to get a bit drunk with friends, which tells us a bit more about her social cohort.
to find that she, Oedipa: her role in this story is thrust upon her from the very first sentence, in contrast to the the passive drift suggested above.
She supposed executrix: Oedipa is la little pendantic, not to mention well-educated, although we should already have guessed that from her upper-class name.
Pierce Inverarity: Inverarity is a remote village in Scotland (and a very nice one too; I've driven through it several times, but that won't be on the test). We may suspect that the late Mister Inverarity was a typical Scottish penny pincher...
once lost two million dollars in is spare time: ...or maybe not. This will be a whimsical story that confounds out expectations.
more than honorary: Oedipa must have a certain level of professional competence to have been selected for this task.
Besides all this, don't neglect the more poetic aspects of the language - the rhythm, alliteration, internal rhyming and shifting subjective clauses are engaging, the word combinations euphonious. I find Pynchon a pleasure to read despite the lack of plot or clear narrative motion. He has voice, bringing in sense of children's stories with their odd givens, the mild daytime drunkenness, the sense of having been selected for a task bigger than one might have chosen for oneself.
As you can guess, I'm personally rather fond of this book :)
yup, i'm fond of it too. crying of lot 49 was way more approachable than gravity's rainbow, which is absolutely puzzling without a lot of re-reading. i also read v. and vineland, which are also easier than gravity's rainbow but are still relatively convoluted compared to, say, a delillo novel. i was introduced to both authors in a history of science class, of all places. =]
"Inverarity" also suggests "inverse rarity", a kind of postage stamp --- foreshadowing a theme of the book.
A novel is not meant to be a police report. It's entertainment. It's a work of art. The point of art and entertainment is to provoke emotions and pleasurable sensations in the viewer's brain. In this way Pynchon creates a dreamy vivid world that's a plaything for the mind. Each sentence is an art object in a narrative museum.
> This is loaded with irrelevancies (full of noise) no matter what the "single thought" it is supposed to convey might be. If it's about her role as executor, why the detail about the kirsch in the fondue at the garden party? If it's about the garden party, why the anecdote about the loss of two million dollars?
You seem to have confused narrative fiction with program documentation.
You seem to have confused narrative fiction with program documentation.
What I like about my favourite fiction (Douglas Adams, Larry Niven, Vernor Vinge) isn't the plot or characters but the insightful little observational asides and their apt expression.
That paragraph, though short, has an awful lot of information; "noise" yes, but interesting and neat observations, even elegant in their economy.
That paragraph, though short, has an awful lot of information; "noise" yes, but interesting and neat observations, even elegant in their economy.
It's a technique typically referred to as 'free indirect discourse' (or 'style' or 'speech'). The details aren't irrelevant; they're part of the characterization of Oedipa.
https://litreactor.com/columns/the-benefits-of-free-indirect...
http://faculty.washington.edu/cbehler/glossary/freeindsty.ht...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_indirect_speech
https://litreactor.com/columns/the-benefits-of-free-indirect...
http://faculty.washington.edu/cbehler/glossary/freeindsty.ht...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_indirect_speech
"Run-on sentence" is a technical term denoting a specific grammatical error and not a synonym for a sentence with more words than you'd prefer. A sentence is either a run-on or it is not.
You may as well say that a polygon is somewhat rectangular.
You may as well say that a polygon is somewhat rectangular.
David Foster Wallace writes (in an essay collected in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again) about the connection for him between higher math and logic and writing fiction. About the "click" that happens when things fall into place. For several years, I chased exactly that in fiction, before returning to my teenage passion for programming. I was immensely pleased to find the same "click" in software. The same challenges of world creation, of collecting, balancing and combining incongruent, contradictory and abstract thoughts in my head before committing them to screen.
What I'm suggesting is Thomas Pynchon, David Foster Wallace and, let's add, William Gass, are programmers' writers.