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/lit/ - Literature

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909530 No.909530 [Reply] [Original]

I want to tackle two or three of these big novels this summer. Any suggestions as to which I should read? I'm almost definitely going to read Moby-Dick, I think.

Sorry if this is overdone, I don't come here often.

>> No.909532

A la recherche du temps perdu

>> No.909534

Les Chants de Maldoror

>> No.909536

>>909532
I wish, don't have it.

>> No.909542

I'll throw a vote to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

>> No.909543

You should start with an entry level Pynchon like the Crying of Lot 49 before you get your mind blown by Gravity's Rainbow or Mason & Dixon

>> No.909550

None of the hipster bullshit you have in your pic, plz.

>> No.909552

>>909543
I've read CoL 49 many times. I've already attempted Gravity's Rainbow and I've read Mason & Dixon, I'm just pretty indecisive sometimes.

>> No.909555

>>909550
Go suck a dick, plz.

>> No.909559

WUBC is the easiest, but not the best.

>> No.909570

>>909559
That's what I thought, I haven't read any of his, though.

>> No.909586

Moby-Dick. It will be excruciating, but at least you will have done it.

>> No.909596

Read Gravity's Rainbow. I've read it a half-dozen times including two times for a class where I had to read it in 2 weeks. Not saying it's easy, but it can be done. After I finished it the first time I immediately went back to re-read it and caught a ton of new stuff. It's an extremely layered, but also wonderful book.

In one of those classes (Cybernetic Fiction) I read:

Gravity's Rainbow
House of Leaves
Crash (by: Ballard)
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
Watchmen

All in 10 weeks. It was rigorous as hell, but still the best class I've ever taken.

Anyway, cool story bro and you should read Gravity's Rainbow.

>> No.909597

>>909586
That's what I was worried about. Is it really that bad?

>> No.909603

>>909596
That's pretty awesome. How's was the Ballard and Calvino?

>> No.909610

>>909543

Samefag that loved GR. I started with GR and read other Pynchon afterward and never had regrets about it.

It's the difference between dipping a toe and jumping right in. I never felt intimidated, but I can't say I understood everything my first time through either. Gravity's Rainbow is his magnum opus, and definitely one of the best works of the 20th century.

>> No.909607

Moby-Dick will either be a pleasure or a pain, depending on how highly you value plot.

>> No.909618

>>909607
I don't value it. I do value having my mind stimulated/blown. Helps if it's funny, too.

>> No.909626

>>909603

Ballard got a little repetative. There's only so many times you can read a scene with people fucking and crashing in cars before you get the violence/eroticism connection he was going for. And then you have half a book of that shit still to go.

But Calvino is wonderful. I was really glad to read that because I know I wouldn't have been exposed to it otherwise. It's a weird style of fiction where Calvino talks to the reader while he tells a story about himself. Kind of weird, but he works it masterfully.

>> No.909627

>>909597
Melville's writing is good, but not in the sense anyone would like. There is nothing fun about reading Moby-Dick.

>> No.909639

I HATE NIGGERS!!!!!!

>> No.909653

>>909639
Never change, 4chan.

>> No.909655

>>909618
Good, because Melville frequently goes off on chapter long tangents about whale law, whale mythology, whale biology, et cetera while putting the actual events of the story on the back-burner. Those chapters are some of the most intense philosophical and poetic statements I've ever read in a novel, but most people find them frustratingly boring.

>> No.909687

>>909655
Nice! I read the first 10 pages, randomly, not expecting much, and was really loving the descriptions of wanting to go to sea and large bodies of water.

>> No.909736

Looks like Gravity's Rainbow and Moby-Dick this summer. I'll try to fit in some smaller novels here and there to keep me sane.

>> No.909748

>>909736
Moby-Dick will seriously make you want to go to sea. Try to resist the urge.

>> No.909753

>>909748
i bet it's why pynchon dropped out of cornell, temporarily, to join the navy

>> No.909882

>>909655

lol.....uve neva read real philosophy then..................

>> No.909893

>>909655
kay passa

>> No.909901

>>909882
>in a novel
derp

>> No.909903

1. Wind Up-Bird Chronicle
2. Gravity's Rainbow
3. Moby-Dick

I found Mason/Dixon more tedious than Moby Dick. 2666 has ungodly run-on sentences

>> No.909907

I'd go with Bolano. I read it this year and it's good.