why do people (including Pynchon) say this is a bad book, /lit/?

>>9473754
nobody says this

>>9473756
yes they do, including Pynchon

>>9473754
maybe bad for pynchon standards


still better than anything I will ever write

>>9473754
Only Pynchon said it's bad. Most people think it's great.

Where is the proof that Pynchon said it's bad?

doesn't exist.

>>9473765
he didn't say it was bad, it was just where he unlearned what he knew, which is basically saying he discovered real success was not found in the traditions he was accustomed to.
in a way it was his most successful work.

>>9473783
>
intro to Slow Learner

>>9473768
Stop thinking like this. You're not a suburban father born in the 50s.

>>9473792
no he just said, as i explained earlier, that he unlearned what he knew and that he didn't believe it was a novel, which in a way it's not, it's a novella.
He never said it was bad.
And obviously he holds some resentment towards it being his most successful for what he feels are somewhat unwarranted reasons, but which i feel are just clear indications that he was caught in the zeitgeist of old and new and didn't know how to feel about it.

>>9473802
Why does him writing a novella imply that he unlearned something? Can you summarize what this is about? I'm curious and don't have Slow Learner to read it myself. I'm on your side.

I hate it when people classify it as an entry point to Pynchon alone

It's a fantastic work in its own right

>>9473811
its just small Pynchon

>>9473754
>>9473765
>>9473769
Keep in mind that its simply the dynamic between authors and critics to disagree about pretty much everything.
Also keep in mind that an author's opinion on their own work should be ignored if the purpose is to find its merit. Only listen to an author talk about themselves if you want to know how they talk about themselves.

>>9473810
It's just very clearly a short story. It doesn't have the weight or the catharsis of a novel. It's a little experiment, but a very original one. It was his being unnacustomed to the idea that maybe his originality that was his real strong point, not his emotional intelligence and knowledge or whatever that really shook him, i think.
Basically, he discovered he was an A+ gimmick writer and this was enlightening and scary for him.
Drew his disdain over time as he became frustrated with his real talent versus what he wished it was most likely.

>>9473802
OK. I actually think it's one of his best works, I was just mentioning where the idea is from

>>9473802
He called it a "potboiler" and said he'd forgotten everything he learned about fiction up to that point when he wrote it, it's not any kind of oblique comment

>>9473802
>he didn't believe it was a novel, which in a way it's not, it's a novella.
I want to fucking strangle you. You non-sequit your way onto the dumbest branch of his words.

>>9473878
Yikes!

>>9473856
>"potboiler"
that's essentially what i said when i described it as a gimmick novel.

>>9473878
how so?
a novella is like a long short story, often one with a single theme.

>>9473878
typical pynchon-fan autism at it's finest.

it's good to not be you.
your favorite author kinda sucks by the way. TCOL 49 literally is his best work as it encapsulates his only real skill as an author into the shortest possible form.

>>9473898
>a novella is like a long short story, often one with a single theme.
Because it's nearly irrelevant to what he meant in saying it wasn't a novel. There's no point there, and certainly no interesting one. He's not begging for your digressive categorization.
And a potboiler isn't a "gimmick novel". You even misinterpret Pynchon here.
I don't understand how you can fuck up like this.

>>9473925
What? I don't even like Pynchon. I'm just telling you to come to that end after reading "it's not really a novel" is really silly. It has nothing to do with any categorizing.

>>9473940
a gimmick novel was a potboiler for the time.
use some applied reasoning dummy.

He clearly felt disdain for the book because it was his most successful and at the same time his least ambitious. That was my point. It raised a strange ceiling to aspire to.
Don't shit yourself baby-man.

>>9473832
>novel
>weight
>catharsis
>implying existence of prototypical novel
You don't know what you're talking about

>>9473754
Because they're plebs. Including Pynchon.

>>9475426
other anon here, I disagree.

>>9476174
good post