Thomas Pynchon » Forum

Recommendations...

 
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    • 15 Mar 2008, 12:15

    Recommendations...

    ...books by other authors.

    I can start with Don DeLillo's "Underworld". It's complex, huge and satisfying review of last decades in United States. It's definitely the most pynchonian book by DeLillo I know (but again, I've read only few DeLillo's books).

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    • 20 Kas 2008, 22:29
    I would have to point out that length is certainly not a recommendation unless there is a point to said length. That being said, I believe I can confidently connect William S. Burroughs' Nova Express and Naked Lunch.

    Think about CONTROL!


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    • rm508 şöyle demiş...
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    • 21 Kas 2008, 13:41
    I think size matters with Pynchon (and with DeLillo's Underworld). Check out the excellent (short) article by E Mendelson, 'Encyclopedic Narratives: From Dante to Pynchon'.

    (I've uploaded it: http://www.mediafire.com/file/x34muzylzkj/Encyclopedic Narrative.pdf)

    As a recommendation, I'm a massive EL Doctorow fan. He's Pynchon's contemporary and wrote some really good mock-historical novels about the rise of American corporate culture in the early 20th century. Ragtime is the standout, but Loon Lake and The Book of Daniel are also excellent.

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    • 21 Kas 2008, 17:05
    Thanks for this recommendation. I have thought about E L Doctorow for years but have yet to read any of his work. You are saying I should begin with RAGTIME. Also, in my opinion. anything that derives its title from the Bible is always worth reading. i.e.; The Book of Daniel.

    What are your thoughts about The March?


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    • rm508 şöyle demiş...
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    • 21 Kas 2008, 17:30
    Do read him, and you should definitely start with Ragtime.

    Yeah The March is also really good. His most recent, about the Civil War. Does what Ragtime does in bringing together a rabble of various real and fictional characters using a kind of montage form. I guess while Ragtime is fast and exuberant, The March is more stately.

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    • 21 Kas 2008, 17:44
    Exuberant vs. Stately. Sounds appropriate to me (given the subject matter).

    Thank you much.


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    • rm508 şöyle demiş...
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    • 21 Kas 2008, 18:07
    No problems.

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    • 22 Kas 2008, 14:22
    I'll check out Ragtime next time I'll go to library.

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    • 22 Kas 2008, 17:03
    Yeah me too. Perhaps today. If not, then Monday.


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    • Jester-US şöyle demiş...
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    • 24 Kas 2008, 22:15
    I did in fact check out Doctorow's Ragtime from the Library today. I will probably begin it this weekend.

    Hope all is well in reader land these days.


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    • 27 Kas 2008, 11:59
    So, how's Ragitme?

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    • 28 Kas 2008, 04:56
    I have not started it yet, but will this weekend or this week. I am trying to finish up another couple of books and a couple of other articles etc first. Lots of reading.


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    • 7 Ara 2008, 05:23
    Anyone read 'the Man Who Was Thursday' by GK Chesterton? An amusing little caper... Far less complex than Pynchon. The humor reminds me of him somehow though.

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    • 7 Ara 2008, 07:01
    I have a copy of this book sitting on my shelf and am planning to begin once the new year rolls around. I am quite excited. Thanks for the encouragement.


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    • 7 Ara 2008, 11:19
    CaseyBeal said:
    Anyone read 'the Man Who Was Thursday' by GK Chesterton? An amusing little caper... Far less complex than Pynchon. The humor reminds me of him somehow though.


    Good book and good point.

  • Ah ok - recommendations

    recommendations OR maybe avoids

    This year, apart from Slow Learner, has been a bit slow for me and reading. It started with Stef Penney's 'The Tenderness of Wolves' which won a few awards and is very good indeed. The last few years I got into a habit of reading male authors whining about this and that, how the world is unfair and blah blah blah so it was refreshing to pick up a female writer and a hell of a story. Its a murder set in a very small Canadian community based right on the edge of civilisation, surrounded by corruption and desolation in the 1800's. I read a book set in such utter cold when relaxing in 40+ degrees Perth, Oz. It cooled me down. Good stuff.

    Lately read Steve Martin's novel 'The pleasure of my Company' about a mild asperger's guy (although the symptom isn't referred too - possibly to avoid more uncomfortable issues) who lives his life facing a few tasks. Its not a very good book at all, all his characters are wrapped in cotton wool, as is the reader; he keeps explaining everything that will happen in one way or another so that there is no sense of suspense or shock. Not that I cared what happened to any one in the book. This is fodder for the Hallmark channel to turn into a tele-movie. High praise indeed.
    Steve Martin has a biography out as well so go read that instead.

    Best book I read this year was not a novel but an autopsy over the state of the news media (UK focused but bit of US and others) - 'Flat Earth News' by Nick Davies is one hell of a read, shocking, numbing and soul destroying - you wont be able to watch or read the news the same after reading this.
    And mercifully its not some big ol' conspiracy book saying that "its all the fault of the right wing corporations" - no its maybe more cynical than that. Davies is the inside man - a journalist for the Guardian with contacts working on all other papers.
    Buy this book and check out the website - www.flatearthnews.net - which gives a taster...

    On a music bent, Bill Drummond's '17' is annoying but provoking in equal measure & on a drugs trip John Higgs 'I have America Surrounded' - the life of Timothy Leary - may well interest Pynchon heads. Weird times.

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    • 8 Ara 2008, 05:46
    thisisall1word, Thanks for your suggestions. I just read Bernard Goldberg's book ARROGANCE. This journalistic piece of writing is about questions of free speech and agendas of news writers. .

    Thanks for the Nick Davies note. That sounds like something that I must read soon. And any book called I HAVE AMERICA SURROUNDED must be noted.


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  • It's probably missing the point of the book but I don't think I'll be reading the Goldberg one - most likely because I'm probably a woolly lefty liberal.
    In UK we see liberals as a middle ground between left and right and therefore the liberal media, as a whole sits between the two main parties.
    Watching US news (I don't read the papers except Time and Newsweek) seems very odd to a non USAian because everything sounds so right wing, even the 'liberal' news. (Oh - and I'll ignore Fox news completely!)
    So I guess I would agree with Goldberg that the media may not reflect a middle ground between the two parties, sitting to the left of both and therefore viewed as 'liberal elite' - although the word elite is a bit of misdirection any charged with inflammatory meaning.
    A media sitting at odds to the political climate is not a bad thing...

    Was the book any good then?!

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    • 10 Ara 2008, 08:38
    It was a good book basically. He ended by calling for intellectual diversity in the newsroom (Goldberg is a lefty himself in some ways), a factor that misses the boat too often in our all is good and unity New America because that ideology suggests that we blindly accept all ideas and suggestions for culture as equally valid without even examining them. I hear some version of this "preaching" on a weekly basis.

    Also, Goldberg's premise matches up with several others (who call themselves liberals) who are calling out the anti-thought thinking so prevalent. I am thinking of Jerry Mander, Allan Bloom, and Susan Jacoby. These writers are not writing about the news per se, but about television, education in contemporary American college classrooms, and pop culture/politics respectively.


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    Jester-US tarafından 14 Ara 2008, 17:34 tarihinde değiştirildi
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    • 14 Ara 2008, 15:26
    Ted Nace - "The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy"
    free download here: http://www.gangsofamerica.com/ but I've read it in polish, and well, the style wasn't superb, but lot of facts surprised me. I was thrilled by it.
    Highly recommended lecture.

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    • 18 Ara 2008, 13:00
    Daniel Kehlmann "Measuring the World"
    - all Mason & Dixon enthusiasts should not be disappointed.

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    • 19 Ara 2008, 07:12
    zorzynek said:
    Daniel Kehlmann "Measuring the World"
    - all Mason & Dixon enthusiasts should not be disappointed.


    I don't know this book.

    But I am finally making my way through Doctorow's Ragtime. It is a pleasure but is not turning my mind into too many new places. All good books should hurt my mental-way. Kafka says that great literature should chop away at the ice within us. Otherwise, it has not done its job or we have not read the right works.

    What do you think about this idea and how might Pynchon relate?


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    • 22 Ara 2008, 12:56
    I don't think that Kafka's definition of good literature is the only one to follow. Personally, I must say that it's surely not my standard of recognizing good book.

    Last 20 pages of Gravity Rainbow touched me. But was it ice breaking experience? I don't think so. Actually I don't believe in books changing life. According to kafkian standards "Heart is a lonely hunter" is better than GR.

    For me, book is good if it's not predictable. I read for 100 pages. If it's getting more and more safer and predictable, I quit. What can I say. So much to read so little time...

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    • 22 Ara 2008, 16:15
    I certainly like this idea of quitting a seemingly predictable book.

    But why would you say that Kafka would prefer Heart is a Lonely Hunter to Gravity's Rainbow?

    I am going to start a thread dedicated to this topic. Please reply there. I will call the thread "Ice Breaking Literature."


    A Labyrinth Nomad. I listen and the map continually...
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    • 3 Mar 2009, 16:02
    Fellow Pynchonphiles, getting back to the subject here:
    Any good books you've read lately?

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