253 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury 9 May \ on: [REVIEW] Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon BooksAndArticles
Here's the deal: you don't read Thomas Pynchon for his plots.
I think you're right, and I've always wondered what you do read Pynchon for. Not just him, there are others in that same boat, who write giant tomes that feel like homework, or repairing some arcane machine that you don't have parts for. I own a literal handbook designed to allow people to comprehend Gravity's Rainbow; I got a modest way through it before I came to my senses.
I am not a stranger to effortful reading, but I've never understand what reward people get by reading Pynchon except the veneer of intelligence that reading him seems to confer; or that the reader believes is conferred.
He's got a gift for sucking you in so that when you finally come back up for air, you're wondering whether you've been reading for five minutes or fifty. But it can be tiring and sometimes you end up never finishing.
Question, and this isn't me trying to be a jerk: if nobody knew the name Pynchon, would you really bother with it? If the world hadn't concluded that James Joyce, DeLillo were geniuses, would a naiive stranger grab Finnegan's and be like: holy shit, this is astounding? Or would they say: jesus, what a sad attempt at being original, and toss it in recycling?
It really comes across as the lady protesting too much. For what little payout you describe, it seems that there are nearly infinity better options than Pynchon. What am I missing?
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218 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby OP 9 May
I read this one because I've read a few other Pynchon books that I liked. Gravity's Rainbow is similarly muddy but he got me with the v2 rocket thing (rockets falling randomly over London but also always some place the main character was a few days ago, but also statisticians say it's just a coincidence) caught my imagination.
Which leads to your larger point: if the world started with something like Finnegan's Wake I doubt we ever would have heard of Joyce. But Ulysses was something new and maybe even a good read. So these artists build trust by producing things we do think are good and then they step out into unknown territory and try something unexpected.
There are no guarantees that it works out. And they definitely get to draft off their previous success. But sometimes it works out and we end up adapting our sensibilities to this new thing and it turns out to be quite enjoyable.
(I don't think it worked out for Pynchon here--it will be a while before I read another one of his books)
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