Books Part V, featuring Benny Profane and the Whole Sick Crew

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First though I'm finishing Vineland my first Pynchon. I like the way it moves, he's a fantastic writer, creative and blah blah blah my biggest problem is that it isn't nearly as funny as it's trying to be. There are fucking hundreds of jokes in here, from actual jokes, to word play to sly comedic descriptions and so on, and maybe one out of every 10 lands. Haven't laughed out loud once yet, but usually it's completely inoffensive. There are a few moments though where I just want to be like ugh fuck you, which stop me in my tracks, but whatever. Compared to Infinite Jest, which I'm not sure I actually like more as a novel... well, at least that one is fucking hilarious.

If you scroll a couple of pages back, you'll find my thoughts mirroring yours regarding Pynchon. I'm reading Gravity's Rainbow though. The humor is so infantile at times - I realise Pynchon is a film fan and my impression is that some chapters attempt to convey the slapstick humor of Keaton and Chaplin, but a lot of it is ridiculous and cartoonish and does not apply to the book format too well. Plus I was never that big on the kind of humor that is supposed to be silly and stupid - the songs being the primary example of this.

However, I don't know if it's me being more in sync with his style, or the humor just getting better, but I do find myself laughing out loud more at some of the uniquely absurd and preposterous situations Pynchon comes up with. When he just lets his (drug-induced) imagination roll and does not rely on crappy jokes, the humor feels more natural and charming. I'm two thirds into the novel and I'm finally getting really excited to get back to it.

The writing is perversely brilliant, the themes and metaphors are fascinating and yes, it is getting more entertaining and funny. But I still feel much more connected with DFW's writing, since I've read Infinite Jest before this and found it far more compelling and the humor being so superior it's not even funny (heh).
 
Yeah, pretty much precisely my feelings towards Vineland as well. It's funny you mention Keaton and Chaplin, are those quoted influences on his work? I feel the whole cinema thing too though, and yeah, even without those exact touchstones, parts of Vineland fall seriously flat because certain kinds of visual humor don't translate as well to prose. Timing and sight-gags are really easy to fuck up when you're only reading them and forming the scenes mentally. I'd agree too that it's the more general circumstances he throws his characters and plot curves into that get the biggest chuckles from me.
 
I started reading The Crying of Lot 49 last night and I'm somewhat underwhelmed after a couple of chapters. Perhaps I'm just not in the mood for Pynchon's prose right now, but I share some of your sentiments. I don't find it particularly funny, although the story is interesting enough. Some of the puns probably escape me as a non-native speaker, but that's not a deal breaker, I just find it quite mundane and not necessarily original in that particular style.
 
I don't enjoy his writing at all. I'm probably not intelligent enough to glean whatever enjoyment from it that I'm supposed to. And, to be honest, at this stage of my life reading is for enjoyment or learning, not for me to struggle through a book for over a month just because really learned people think I should. The turning point for me was probably when I decided it would be fun to read Le Morte d'Arthur in Middle English. I got through it, and upon immediate reflection considered it a complete fucking waste of time that would impress nobody but people I'd rather never speak to anyway.

So it's not like I'm sitting around reading Twilight but I probably am not busy reading Proust either.

I should list the last few books I have read followed by my in-depth 3 sentence reviews.
 
Lot 49 has an intriguing storyline and I really enjoyed the way it resolved itself, but Pynchon's prose seemed willfully difficult. For such a seemingly light and compact novel, it's extraordinarily dense. And yeah, a lot of the humor slipped past me.
 
I'm trying to read Les Miserables, but I don't think it's doing it for me. I'll give it a bit more time.
 
I started out enjoying it, but then it went on about the bishop for 50 pages and I started to find myself frequently checking how far I was from the next part.

Though, now that Jean has entered the story, I'm more into it.
 
SCUBA once had to……..eliminate, let's say, a bishop in a foreign land. It was a lot like chess, except chess pieces don't actually sell American secrets stolen from the consulate and sell them to our enemies, and of course chess pieces don't bleed and die.

But, yeah, how about that Jean Valjean, huh?
 
I bet if SCUBA existed, and it were a long line of individuals who, over time, took on its persona, Jean Valjean would've been SCUBA.
 
I'd actually apply the "willfully difficult" descriptor to Wallace before Pynchon judging only by Vineland at least, though the former typically pays off better for the work.
 
I'm trying to read Les Miserables, but I don't think it's doing it for me. I'll give it a bit more time.


i was going to do that. but then i remembered there's no music in the book, so i lost interest.
 
I've never watched the musical because I just can't for the life of me understand how that story gave someone the idea to stick some music with it.
 
I started out enjoying it, but then it went on about the bishop for 50 pages and I started to find myself frequently checking how far I was from the next part.

Though, now that Jean has entered the story, I'm more into it.

I read the abridged version in high school and really liked it. Apparently the original has a lot of pointless commentary that has nothing to do with the story, which is why it's the size of a brick.
 
SCUBA once had to……..eliminate, let's say, a bishop in a foreign land. It was a lot like chess, except chess pieces don't actually sell American secrets stolen from the consulate and sell them to our enemies, and of course chess pieces don't bleed and die.

But, yeah, how about that Jean Valjean, huh?

:applaud:
 
I've never watched the musical because I just can't for the life of me understand how that story gave someone the idea to stick some music with it.

I was familiar with the musical before I even knew it was based on a book. :shifty:


:lol: I don't think I could read it because all the singing going on in my head would distract me too much.


Or that, yes.
 
I read the abridged version in high school and really liked it. Apparently the original has a lot of pointless commentary that has nothing to do with the story, which is why it's the size of a brick.

There was a whole chapter, I just read, completely devoted to an analogy.

It was a 3 page long chapter, but still.
 
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

I thought that The Road and No Country for Old Men were great but for some reason I wasn't feeling this one and struggled to finish it. Maybe because the setting and characters just didn't grab me much.
 
In need of recommendations.

I'm taking most of the year off from writing any new material, but I'm beginning to read more in the meantime so I'll have a particular voice/tone ready to go when I start up again. The direction I want to go in is more surrealist/fantasy than anything I've done before, so I'm looking for recommendations in that vein.

More specifically, I want novels that are very creative with storytelling and consistently throw readers for a loop as they go along. Really, anything inventive or surprising would be great.
 
If On A Winter's Night by Italo Calvino is a very creative experiment. Might be playing with form more than you're looking for though.

I'd also check out House Of Leaves, which tries a lot of different things and also happens to be the scariest book I've ever read at times. Has a big cult following.
 
House of Leaves has been sitting on our bookshelf for about a year now. I started to read it in September, planning to read it throughout the Halloween season, but I don't remember why that didn't pan out. I should probably get back to that at some point, but for now, I'm still Les Miz'ing it.
 
If On A Winter's Night by Italo Calvino is a very creative experiment. Might be playing with form more than you're looking for though.

The four most incredible bits of writing that I've read are (in order):

1. Finnegan's Wake - Joyce

2. The Library of Babel - Borges

3. Without fear of wind or vertigo (Chapter 8 of If On A Winter's Night a Traveler) - Calvino

4. Ithaca (Chapter 17 of Ulysses) - Joyce

In fact, my son's name was taken from Calvino's works.
 
As much as I generally love Joyce, Finnegan's Wake makes me want to jam pencils in my eyeballs.
 
I read the Divergent trilogy over the weekend.

The first book was decent enough, and made me want to keep going, but it was all downhill from there.
 
The entire foundation the world itself is based on seems completely absurd and doomed to fail. And then there's a generic YA romance thrown in because why not.
 
Some might be pleased to know I've crested and am finally investing all my reading time to Infinite Jest. Around the 60% mark (according to kindle, which includes the equally-sized endnotes) and things are really beginning to trickle into place and it's pretty glorious.
 
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