Howdy Weirdos,

It's Wednesday once more, and if you don't know what the means, I'll let you in on a little secret: another thread of Casual Discussion!

This is our weekly thread dedicated to discussing whatever we want to outside the realm of Thomas Pynchon and tangentially-related subjects.

Every week, you're free to utilize this thread the way you might an "unpopular opinions" or "ask reddit"-type forum. Talk about whatever you like.

Feel free to share anything you want (within the r/ThomasPynchon rules and Reddit TOS) with us, every Wednesday.

Happy Reading and Chatting,

- r/ThomasPynchon Moderator Team

Does it say somewhere in GR that Slorhrop becomes a business man in later life?

Random question, but does anyone know if Pynchon read much jung (i wouldnt doubt it)? I wonder if there is some possible relation between Pynchon's fish symbolism in GR and Jung's studies in Aion concerning the "first fish of christ" (1-1000?) and the "second fish of the antichrist" (1000 - 2000 ad?)

I have a question for everyone here: how do you balance rereading books that you loved and book you haven’t read but feel important and that you need to read?

My list of books that I need to read is long, I know I don’t have enough time to read them all. With that being said, there are some books that I’ve read that have really stuck with me and I would love to reread (gravity’s rainbow, infinite jest, 2666 to name a few), but I don’t feel like I’ll have time to actually reread them.

I guess the answer is clear, just put off reading something new and reread something I would love to read again.

Anyways, I would love to hear your thoughts on this and how you all handle it!

Since the death of my father, I've coped by reading literature. It was about a year ago. Nietzsche, Delilo, Wallace, and mostly, Pynchon. Eventually, I wanted to deliver to the world what it had done to me; true art. So, I began my drive to copy Pynchon and write just like me. But no, I failed.

I briefly contemplated suicide, but decided against it. My great Grandfather died fighting for Germany, and I was going to die voluntarily; for what?

So I decided that it would be better if I left this sub and tried to copy DFW instead.

So then, goodbye guys. Thanks for the journey here. May the stars be with you.

Here's my new efforts:

The fucking is done at 11 PM, in the dead of night, when even the hordes of loyal canines are quiet. His cock leaves her body, temporarily floating at the inbetween point, neither here nor there, neither non-existant, or, fully existent, the phantom cock, floating through space and time. Her back is arched nicely, but her body died, the fucking being too much for her, a process started in that most ominous of all abiding omens, the TV store; what forces hath conspired that first confluenced the stars together, which brought her there, and began her descent, that his fucking brought to a final explosion? He feels her dead soul come inside him, oh shit, his cock growing to unforeseen levels.

Her body is dead now, but her soul died last week. It's 11 PM but his mind is still on.

Consumerism is going to fucking kill America. He knows it, but who else does. FUCK. Shit, shit, shit.

No, scrap that. Consumerism is going to fucking, shitting, excise America. Quiet now, schoolchildren. Your Final death awaits at the hands of the pleasure machine, too good to resist. Who will fuck each other if true love is gone? What they really need is some form of Fascism, maybe even that 'integralism' down there in that Brazil?

It's 11 PM but his mind is still on. Fuck consumerism.

Recently I paused my first pass through Bleeding Edge, which, unfortunately, I’m not loving that much, and read the 15 or so page Fourth of July passage from Against the Day, which introduces Webb the union man and Veikko the Finn and their dynamite activities. Every sentence is flawless, and I was re-blown away by its perfect, imminently exerptible prose.

Other passages that I love to go back to are, of course, the famous Franz Pökler 40-pager in Gravity’s Rainbow.

What are some other longer passages wherein, in this communities esteemed opinion, Pynchon’s prose reaches astounding unforgettable heights?

Note: This is a first draft, and my first real attempt at writing anything with real thought behind it since I was 12 years old.

This will probably also be the last of this type of posts, because I really don't want to get banned. As I have already been banned from r/neoliberal r/poetry and r/cormacmccarthy etc for trolling.

Here it is:

A Whole Buncha Nothing

Erich walks through the forest. Trees, bushes, carriage. Death sez hi. Erich sez howdy too. Hmmm… Should he be doin’ something here?

Keeps walking. ‘Hey haven’t you read the user’s manual?’, death feeling quite insulted. ‘What?’. ‘You died this morning’. ‘How?’. ‘You were shot’. ‘Don’t think so’. Continues walking away. Now, this is where you would usually expect something profound.

Death however, quite tired at this point, feeling that he really doesn’t have the time to deal with stuff like this anymore, and quite badly wanting a raise, puts Erich down for a rough carriage ride down to hell when he meets him next, and leaves off, muttering about the laws of nature, and planning a strike until predeterminism agrees to start showing up more.

Erich, reaching the edge of the forest, re-entering the world of the living, feels the sensation (hehe) of long-lost fucks drifting back to him. Standing for a moment to bask in the glory of such an experience, his souls temporarily float out of his body, leading to…

​

BLORP AND THORP

At A Spate In Whyme

Live BLORP AND THORP

Their Exhaust Feels Quite Sublime

An Amount of Miles

Crazily High

Which Makes the Likelihood

Of That Elderly Guy

Seem Quite Low

But What Do They Know?

​

Thorp, Thorp, There Goes Blorp

Blorp, Blorp, There Goes Thorp

Blorp Moves a lepostant

Feels Himself

HELP, HELP!

He Just Forgot

An Exponential Graph’s

Worth of History!

He should say no

But What do They Know?

​

Blorp, Blorp, There Goes Thorp

Thorp, Thorp, There Goes Blorp

Tries to Say Hi

Should have Sez’d Something Else

Will Blorp Die?

That’s an amount crazily high

A Linear Graph’s

Worth Of Math!

But Nah,

Blorp is good,

Thorp highs

Quite Alright

It Shows

But What Do They Know?

​

Hrrrgh jdfalmorkl

Illo Giysdsla

sdkoa[iiysddl

?????{!} iolkdoasa

Doaklwwirokod

Ajhsb’=;lihbdsm{hgg}

Guugggjhjdhs

But What Do They Know?

​

​

Reaching the camp. Shivering. The exhaust fuels of the tanks mix unwelcomely with the dew, which, by forces as yet unknown, is pulled down, into an eternal slope, ‘tears of heaven’, oxidize, freeze, thaw, go up in smoke, joining their brothers, descending upon the earth and the creatures who are bound to a single form, never to be free, now they are upon the leaves, why did they choose to evaporate, condense, precipitate they wonder, if their freedom lead them here… no, leads them here, as now they are being pulled down, never to be of the again and never to be unchained, as they begin to become one, their numbers dwindling, an eternal downwards slope, reaching the zero, the absolute, closer, closer, so close that it shouldn’t matter but it does, a succession of numbers, ever thinner slices of time, never vanishing entirely.

As they enter their not-so-final descent, just barely touching the zero, the exhausts, the excrement thrown off by the quickly all-encompassing engines, in their forwards drive, begins to mix, the new, with that which has been there before time existed, the former, sloping upwards, not downwards, never have the ancient been told to fuck off before the young quite so clearly, the sky is blue, the upwards slope not reaching a limit because there is none, no halt, the slope continues on and on… - no, it’s raining.

I'm pleasantly surprised with how not obtuse this one is. I get almost every single thing in here - there's references to anime, video games, leetspeak, Cel-Ray, New York neighborhoods, early internet, old movies, etc etc. Is this book well liked by the Pynchon fans?

Howdy Weirdos,

It's Sunday again, and I assume you know what the means? Another thread of "What Are You Into This Week"?

Our weekly thread dedicated to discussing what we've been reading, watching, listening to, and playing the past week.

Have you:

• Been reading a good book? A few good books?
• Did you watch an exceptional stage production?
• Listen to an amazing new album or song or band? Discovered an amazing old album/song/band?
• Watch a mind-blowing film or tv show?
• Immerse yourself in an incredible video game? Board game? RPG?

We want to hear about it, every Sunday.

Please, tell us all about it. Recommend and suggest what you've been reading/watching/playing/listening to. Talk to others about what they've been into.

Tell us:

What Are You Into This Week?

​

​

- r/ThomasPynchon Moderator Team

https://www.internationalpynchonweek.org/conference-program

Some intriguing-sounding things here (an "unpublished fiction of the San Juan islands" is something I've never heard of).

Are any reddit Pynchonites planning on attending? I think some of the panels from the last Pynchon Week in Vancouver were broadcast online, but I don't see anything on the conference website about remote attendance for this one.

I seem to remember a text thread here in which OP described crying while reading a passage about Roger and Jessica. Can't find it, does anyone remember which passage they were referring to?

EDIT: solved thanks to u/ImmaYieldGuy:

"You go from dream to dream inside me. You have passage to my last shabby corner, and there, among the debris, you’ve found life. I’m no longer sure which of all the words, images, dreams or ghosts are “yours” and which are “mine.” It’s past sorting out. We’re both being someone new now, someone incredible. . . ."(178)

To start this off, I’ve never read a Pynchon novel. However, I’ve been very fascinated by his work ever since I watched Inherent Vice roughly 5 separate times in order to grasp (still somewhat shakily) it’s story or lack thereof? Regardless, I greatly enjoyed the confusing experience and began watching different book reviews regarding his work and the challenges they pose. Now, my reading level has improved significantly since I picked it up again 3 years ago. My greatest challenges were reading half of Cormac McCarthy’s work and am currently blazing through some of Dostoevsky’s stuff at the moment. I’ve never really been versed in the “post modern” literary movement and the closest thing to it that I’ve read is, Ant Kind by Charlie Kaufman. Once I’m finished with reading, The Brother’s Karamazov, I really want to take a swing at Gravity’s Rainbow.

Knowing my brief background, what are some ways I should approach it or mind sets to carry into it before I start? I really want the experience to live up to the batshit expectations I have without fumbling my way and tapping out.

This post exists solely to spare me the eye roll my wife gives me anytime I geek out on a book.

So, not my first Pynchon. That would be Gravity's Rainbow. I followed this up with Inherent Vice (my favourite of his until today). In fact, all that's left for me to read is V and Bleeding Edge.

I have enjoyed all his novels, but I really couldn't say I loved any of them. Not all the way through (although I think a second trip through Against the Day could change this).

Mason and Dixon. I'm only a third of the way through and every single page has knock out prose. Absolutely in love with it. It's the 18th Century English novel I've always kind of hoped existed, but knew in my heart it just couldn't be. And yet, here it is. Written by an American 200 years after the fact. This has no right being as good as it is.

I keep wandering around the house with this brick in my hand like some kind of security blanket. Perhaps because of some subconscious fear someone will take it away from me. They can try.

Rant over.

Against The Day*. I’m in a pretty terrible mental state and have felt the overwhelming need to read AtD recently. Is there anything I should know? I’ve read a few articles about it and have watched a couple videos concerning AtG but I figured I’d ask here.

Started Vineland for the first time yesterday. Is everyone here generally excited for this to be adapted? I haven’t even read it and I definitely am. PTA is my favorite director and Pynchon is probably my favorite author, but I do wish someone would take a crack at M&D

Howdy Weirdos,

It's Wednesday once more, and if you don't know what the means, I'll let you in on a little secret: another thread of Casual Discussion!

This is our weekly thread dedicated to discussing whatever we want to outside the realm of Thomas Pynchon and tangentially-related subjects.

Every week, you're free to utilize this thread the way you might an "unpopular opinions" or "ask reddit"-type forum. Talk about whatever you like.

Feel free to share anything you want (within the r/ThomasPynchon rules and Reddit TOS) with us, every Wednesday.

Happy Reading and Chatting,

- r/ThomasPynchon Moderator Team

Imagine this very elaborate scientific lie: that sound cannot travel through outer space. Well, but suppose it can. Suppose They don’t want us to know there is a medium there, what used to be called an “aether,” which can carry sound to every part of the Earth. The Soniferous Aether. For millions of years, the sun has been roaring, a giant, furnace, 93 million mile roar, so perfectly steady that generations of men have been born into it and passed out of it again, without ever hearing it. Unless it changed, how would anybody know?

Except that at night now and then, in some part of the dark hemisphere, because of eddies in the Soniferous Aether, there will come to pass a very shallow pocket of no-sound. For a few seconds, in a particular place, nearly every night somewhere in the World, sound-energy from Outside is shut off. The roaring of the sun stops. For its brief life, the point of sound-shadow may come to rest a thousand feet above a desert, between floors in an empty office building, or exactly around a seated individual in a working-class restaurant where they hose the place out at 3 every morning ...

We recorded our first episode covering for Bleeding Edge (Chapters 1-3) last night and it will be out Friday. We're really excited to get into this one and would love to know if there's anything specific you all would like to have covered, questions you would like to pose, etc. Leave a comment or send us an email (mappingthezonepod@gmail.com) and we'll discuss in a future episode!

Thanks for coming on this ride with us and we hope you enjoy our coverage of Bleeding Edge!

no such list ever existed. The Pynchon wiki annotations got this wrong.

And there’s no way to know… but it seems likely that Pynchon himself was mistaken and got his source from this really obscure website that you have to use the Wayback Archive to find. The web page mentions a Winnie List, but IIRC it was a joke or parody, or something.

Or am i mistaken?

Anyone know what a Winnie List is?

A user in this sub says they read a rumor where someone who knows Pynchon said that AtD is his favourite work. Is this true? Does anyone have a source for this?