Now Reading

i'm gonna try and read gravity's rainbow for the tenth time. i've never gotten more than fifty pages in. i'm pretty sure pynchon doesn't even know what parts of the book mean. but i own it, like the rest of his work, because i feel like it has some inherent potential to be great.

currently reading his new one. it's a mixed bag. when vineland came out david foster wallace said "pynchon seems to have spent the last twenty years smoking pot and watching tv". i can't see much to change that perspective. bleeding edge is a mess.

  On 9/18/2013 at 6:10 PM, zaphod said:

i'm gonna try and read gravity's rainbow for the tenth time. i've never gotten more than fifty pages in. i'm pretty sure pynchon doesn't even know what parts of the book mean. but i own it, like the rest of his work, because i feel like it has some inherent potential to be great.

 

currently reading his new one. it's a mixed bag. when vineland came out david foster wallace said "pynchon seems to have spent the last twenty years smoking pot and watching tv". i can't see much to change that perspective. bleeding edge is a mess.

I too am 50 pages into Gravity's Rainbow : /

*feels smug about getting all the through Gravity's Rainbow first time*

  On 9/18/2013 at 6:10 PM, zaphod said:

currently reading his new one. it's a mixed bag. when vineland came out david foster wallace said "pynchon seems to have spent the last twenty years smoking pot and watching tv". i can't see much to change that perspective. bleeding edge is a mess.

Well, smoking pot, watching TV, and writing Mason & Dixon, maybe. Which changes the perspective at least a little, right?

I'm sure his recreational activities were given a fair amount of priority, though. Granted.

Mr. Palomar by Italo Calvino

  On 9/18/2013 at 10:29 PM, baph said:

 

  On 9/18/2013 at 6:10 PM, zaphod said:

currently reading his new one. it's a mixed bag. when vineland came out david foster wallace said "pynchon seems to have spent the last twenty years smoking pot and watching tv". i can't see much to change that perspective. bleeding edge is a mess.

Well, smoking pot, watching TV, and writing Mason & Dixon, maybe. Which changes the perspective at least a little, right?

 

I'm sure his recreational activities were given a fair amount of priority, though. Granted.

 

well, that quote is from 1990, so gives it some perspective too, no? i'm using that quote in reference to vineland and then inherent vice and bleeding edge, all three of which i've read. mason and dixon was a non starter for me. maybe it's a masterwork, i'll never know. oh and against the day is another one i can't be bothered with. these might both be amazing books. his shorter novels written during this time are enjoyable to a degree (puns, silly names, paranoia, inherent vice is basically the big lebowski), but they're essentially meaningless. it's totally possible all the weight and meaning is in those two behemoth novels he's written in the last two decades, but i have a feeling, for me, pynchon is a case of the emperor having no clothes.

now reading: MPC4000 manual

fritjof capra - the web of life ("a new scientific understanding of living systems")

pretty good history of systems theory, not nearly as boring as it sounds either

About 1/3 of the way through Infinite Jest and something like 150th on the library waiting list for Bleeding Edge.

  On 9/19/2013 at 7:20 AM, zaphod said:

 

  On 9/18/2013 at 10:29 PM, baph said:

 

  On 9/18/2013 at 6:10 PM, zaphod said:

currently reading his new one. it's a mixed bag. when vineland came out david foster wallace said "pynchon seems to have spent the last twenty years smoking pot and watching tv". i can't see much to change that perspective. bleeding edge is a mess.

Well, smoking pot, watching TV, and writing Mason & Dixon, maybe. Which changes the perspective at least a little, right?

 

I'm sure his recreational activities were given a fair amount of priority, though. Granted.

 

 

well, that quote is from 1990, so gives it some perspective too, no? i'm using that quote in reference to vineland and then inherent vice and bleeding edge, all three of which i've read. mason and dixon was a non starter for me. maybe it's a masterwork, i'll never know. oh and against the day is another one i can't be bothered with. these might both be amazing books. his shorter novels written during this time are enjoyable to a degree (puns, silly names, paranoia, inherent vice is basically the big lebowski), but they're essentially meaningless. it's totally possible all the weight and meaning is in those two behemoth novels he's written in the last two decades, but i have a feeling, for me, pynchon is a case of the emperor having no clothes.

 

Sure. Not trying to proselytize re: Mason & Dixon, but I'd probably rate it his best/most consistent.

I'm looking forward to Bleeding Edge, but as with Inherent Vice, I'm not expecting much more than a laff innit.

I was just going to post that M&D is his strongest book, probably the most likely to be read 100 years from now.

  On 9/20/2013 at 1:38 AM, doublename said:

About 1/3 of the way through Infinite Jest and something like 150th on the library waiting list for Bleeding Edge.

thoughts so far ?

I recently received Gravity's Rainbow. I'm terrified of it based on what people here and elsewhere have made of it. I'll give it a go soon (I've never read Pynchon).

Right now I'm reading Suttree by McCarthy on Iain's recommendation. It gets compared to Faulkner, but equally it reminds me of Bukowski or maybe even Selby given its lowlife themes. I'm about halfway through and definitely finding it a bit of a slog - hasn't gripped me like Blood Meridian, or even All the Pretty Horses, which ultimately I didn't think was that great (I haven't read the other two in that trilogy). I'll persevere with it though - I didn't realise how incredible Blood Meridian was until I was probably halfway through it.

  On 9/22/2013 at 1:03 PM, Ron Manager said:

 

Right now I'm reading Suttree by McCarthy on Iain's recommendation. It gets compared to Faulkner, but equally it reminds me of Bukowski or maybe even Selby given its lowlife themes. I'm about halfway through and definitely finding it a bit of a slog

yeah I liked the world the book created but the journey wasn't too interesting

I just finished Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Thoroughly enjoyed, highly recommended. Trying to decide what else to read by him next, or find something similarily journalistic and interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)

  On 9/22/2013 at 7:53 PM, Jimmy McMessageboard said:

I just finished Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Thoroughly enjoyed, highly recommended. Trying to decide what else to read by him next, or find something similarily journalistic and interesting.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)

Bounce by Matthew Syed is often likened to Outliers, it's sport focussed though. Gave a copy to my sister's boyfriend who is a big sports fan and he loved it. I'd like to read What the Dog Saw by Gladwell. He's got a new one coming out I think, seem to remember seeing a proof lying around my work...

  On 9/23/2013 at 7:34 PM, Sprillian said:

 

  On 9/22/2013 at 7:53 PM, Jimmy McMessageboard said:

I just finished Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Thoroughly enjoyed, highly recommended. Trying to decide what else to read by him next, or find something similarily journalistic and interesting.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)

Bounce by Matthew Syed is often likened to Outliers, it's sport focussed though. Gave a copy to my sister's boyfriend who is a big sports fan and he loved it. I'd like to read What the Dog Saw by Gladwell. He's got a new one coming out I think, seem to remember seeing a proof lying around my work...

 

his new one sounds very much like outliers. i forget the name tho.

not really into sports. maybe i'll try a sample.

i read a sample of what the dog saw and the first chapter was kinda boring. i'm sure it gets better but the first chapter of outliers got me hooked

just finished every love story is a ghost story. it's a biography of david foster wallace. kind of changed my perspective on his writing. he sounds like a really shitty person, unfortunately. hired a guy to kill mary karr's husband because he wanted to be with her, lots of desperate womanizing, heavy, heavy drug use, borderline plagiarism and embellishments in his non fiction, using stories and names from aa meetings verbatim in infinite jest. reading the excerpts of his letters just makes him sound exhausting to be around. trying to wrap my head around it since i held him in somewhat high regard. but he just seems like a really desperate, attention starved egomaniac. very talented, incredibly smart, but i think he might have been kind of a fraud. which is odd, given his search for authenticity in his writing. i just can't separate his writing, which is so intensely personal, from this portrait of the writer. kind of a shame.

I can't believe I've never read Hyperion (just started)

My subway read is Lynch on Lynch :

  On 9/25/2013 at 1:14 PM, Philip Glass said:

My subway read is Lynch on Lynch :

 

I have this one. Very interesting.

WANT!!!

Just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Very bleak and quite beautiful. Going to start Ham On Rye tonight, haven't read any Bukowski before so I'm looking forward to it.

Philip K. Dick - The Transmigration of Timothy Archer

Just finished Karl Ove Knausgaards - My Struggle last night. Started Infinite Jest last night as well let's see if I can make it through it.

Oh and My Struggle was excellent I'd suggest it to anyone due to it's accessibility.