Crying of Lot 49

>>8693235
Why don't you just try reading it my boy

>>8693235

dont for the low-iq and intrinsic meaning memes if you didnt get it right away. the beauty of pynchon is that his work warrants rereading and analysis.

not knowing exactly what is happening, if there is a uniform drive for coherence or not, and if anything is making sense is part of the fun in reading his work while at the same time, it is presented in the work by the experiences of the characters.

did you enjoy it? are you ok with not totally understanding a plot?

if yes, get GR and enjoy.

>>8693253

fuckin typo. "dont fall for the low iq"

>>8693253
Did I enjoy it? From the standpoint of enjoying being put into the mind of someone that either is going mad or thinks they are and subsequently begins to, it was pretty fantastic. I got caught up on Pynchon's odd grammar at times, but I think by the end I appreciated some of his deviations from the norm.

My real worry with reading (I've only recently started trying to push myself out of just reading genre fiction and wish I had done so earlier) is that I'm somehow missing out on something essential when I fail to grasp the deeper meaning people talk about in texts on a first read, but if that's something that you're supposed to really pick up on rereading, then I guess I'll file 49 back into the 'to read' list so I can take a more analytical look.

And you've sold me on GR. I look forward to being confused.

Dont worry about that shit.
Pynchon didn't sit down and say
>I'm gonna write this book with this story, and deep down its gonna all be about communication and chaos in America in the 60's

>>8693277
>the deeper meaning
Just ditch that expression and never use it again

>>8693342
that's because he sat down and said
>I'm gonna write a book about Torquato Tasso
and then he did.

>>8693253
when you rereading "the crying of lot" what insight do you understand that you don´t understand the first time.

>reading for the plot

>>8693277
Keep on reading even if you don't understand shit for the 100 first pages or so. It gets easier in the second chapter

Would V. be a good starting point for Pynchon?

>>8693547
Absolutely

>>8693547
>>8693560
It's not easily read though. Some have said they found it harder going than gravity's rainbow, and in parts I can see why.

>>8693382
kek

>>8693571
It's the first Pynchon I read and I loved it

>>8693571
Chapter 3 maybe.
Also what did he mean by this, this being the ending paragraph of Chapter 3.

>>8693235
>I worry that the deeper meaning eluded me
Congrats, that's the main theme. Oedipa is on the heels of a conspiracy which may also just be a series of coincidences. There's this push-pull of conflicting terrors, either nothing is connected and everything in the world is basically random works of chaos, or there's a cabal keeping everything ordered. The things he references (the painting of the weaving fates, the episode with the coats and its relation to the mahabharata) have to do with the way causation occurs, be it fate/karma/conspiracy or absolute nothingness. He sort of shows his hand in Gravity's Rainbow by saying "If there is something comforting – religious, if you want – about paranoia, there is still also anti-paranoia where nothing is connected to anything, a condition not many of us can bear for long." Crying and V are are both deep in this idea of can we ever make the connections between everything or are they unknowable? Or, how do we cope with the unknowable?

>>8693235
I didn't understand Gravity's Rainbow. At the time I was reading less avant-garde and more character-based stuff. I'm really into Alice Munro, so I was looking for all things she usually puts out in GR because I expected that. I'm reading more complex stuff now, so in the future I'll read GR again and hopefully it won't go over my head.

Byron the Bulb was a great little passage tho.