wow i'm a little over halfway through against the day and it's killing me how amazing the narrative has become. kit in the mayonnaise factory was a recent favorite.
― cutty, Wednesday, 2 February 2011 17:59 (thirteen years ago) link
the part with merle rideout and the photographs coming to life... holy shit
― cutty, Tuesday, 15 March 2011 16:15 (thirteen years ago) link
you all saw there's a new pynchon right
― kristof-profiting-from-a-childs-illiteracy.html (schlump), Tuesday, 8 January 2013 01:08 (eleven years ago) link
yah maybe he'll finally write a good one
― johnny crunch, Tuesday, 8 January 2013 01:15 (eleven years ago) link
I thought this would be about the signed books that hit the market last month:
Well, we have the distinct pleasure to offer four signed books by Pynchon in our April 11 Rare Books Auction #6085, all inscribed to a young man named Michael Urban, who was fighting lymphoma at the time Pynchon signed the books to him in 1986. Urban's mother, Carla, wrote to Pynchon asking him to sign some books, and Pynchon replied that "it would be an honor to help out." We know this because Pynchon's original Typed Letter Signed replying to Carla Urban accompanies the first edition of Gravity's Rainbow, a rare instance of provenance in modern books, and likely the only time a signed book and related letter of provenance of Pynchon's have been sold together.
In this case, the Pynchon TLS is a vital aspect of this book in that it informs a potential buyer that one, Pynchon indeed signed the book himself; and two, the letter tells us WHY Pynchon signed the book: he at one time had a friend with lymphoma, he understood what a struggle it was, and felt the need to help out a boy suffering the same fate.
[ read more » ]
I could find only two auction records for a signed copy of Gravity's Rainbow, the Drapkin copy inscribed to Ken Taub, sold at Christie's in 2005 and a copy sold at Swann in 1999. Each of these copies hammered for over $13,000, each an outstanding result, and indicative of the true rarity to be expected of a copy of this title graced by the pen-hand of its author. But neither of these two copies came with an additional letter, much less one signed by Pynchon himself. And neither, as far as I know, was inscribed to a young man battling cancer.
I think this is the premier copy of Gravity's Rainbow in the world, at least the best one so far revealed to the collecting public, and the book will surely be hotly contested over when our live session commences on Wednesday in New York City. A large part of the desirability is its provenance, which proves it to be a unique copy, tells us why it was signed, and also reveals a level of humanity in Mr. Pynchon not often glimpsed by those who don't know him personally.
The other three books inscribed to Michael Urban are also highly-desirable for the Pynchon inscriptions in them. These include first editions of The Crying of Lot 49 and Slow Learner, and a first Perennial Fiction Library edition of V. For Pynchon fans and collectors, this is a rare treat, as has been living with these books for the last two months. May they all find new homes, and go screaming across the sky to other collections.http://historical.ha.com/c/newsletter.zx?frame=no&id=3709#collector-e
The letter itself is on ebay here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/American-Novelist-Thomas-Pynchon-Typed-Letter-Signed-/170968902943
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Tuesday, 8 January 2013 03:08 (eleven years ago) link
― johnny crunch, Tuesday, 8 January 2013 01:15 (8 hours ago)
have at ye! maybe ATD turns to shit in the second half, doubt it will though
― imago, Tuesday, 8 January 2013 09:24 (eleven years ago) link
no?
― well if it isn't old 11 cameras simon (gbx), Tuesday, 8 January 2013 12:27 (eleven years ago) link
The Bleeding Edge
― Brad C., Tuesday, 8 January 2013 14:25 (eleven years ago) link
Apparently the Guardian phoned up Penguin in the UK to get confirmation and they were all "Really? First we've heard of it". But apparently it's been confirmed by the US.
Exciting anyway, I honestly didn't think there'd be another novel.
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 8 January 2013 14:29 (eleven years ago) link
Me neither. Hope it's a long historical one, hopefully on a period he hasn't covered yet, and not another short 'wasn't the sixties cool?' one.
― Frederik B, Tuesday, 8 January 2013 14:32 (eleven years ago) link
This is great news. I liked AtD, unwieldy and uneven as it was.
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 8 January 2013 15:02 (eleven years ago) link
I recently picked up a copy of AtD for a song ($3). Whether I read it is still an open question, given that my last run at GR failed within 200pp.
― Aimless, Tuesday, 8 January 2013 18:32 (eleven years ago) link
it is much better and more readable imo, you should give it a shot. Like most Pynchon, it works best if you just wallow around in it and let it envelop you.
― sleeve, Wednesday, 9 January 2013 01:40 (eleven years ago) link
It is with joy and no little relief that we announce THOMAS PYNCHON to have last night completed a successful 'mindjack' of ilxor.com user imago, with his novel 'Against The Day'.
Said user was last seen searching for skyborne guardian angels, or at least open-minded peers, to lead this flawed human fabric to a kinder and more Compassionate place, and was also caught wondering about the theological implications of a gender-reversed Immaculate Conception - the fathering-without-issue - Cyprian as Virgin Mary...
― imago, Thursday, 31 January 2013 14:32 (eleven years ago) link
Best Name Award goes to Bevis Moistleigh this time, speshly if Bevis is pronounced how I suspect
― imago, Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:19 (eleven years ago) link
'mind-jacking' is a v good phrase for AtD.
― Say Bo to a (Fizzles), Sunday, 3 February 2013 10:17 (eleven years ago) link
I just finished Ragtime by Doctorow. Merle Rideout has to be based on Pappi, right? Just, with the daughter, and where they end up, it seemed like a homage. Or a parody. One of the two. Ragtime is really great, btw, same period as AtD. Lots of anarchists and mexican revolutionaries.
― Frederik B, Sunday, 3 February 2013 12:22 (eleven years ago) link
hey look its my real name, hi my real name
― attempt to look intentionally nerdy, awkward or (thomp), Sunday, 3 February 2013 16:44 (eleven years ago) link
Thomas Pynchon's new novel BLEEDING EDGE will be published on September 17, deals with Silicon Alley between dotcom boom collapse and 9/11.
― stet, Monday, 25 February 2013 14:43 (eleven years ago) link
lol
― Nilmar Honorato da Silva, Monday, 25 February 2013 14:45 (eleven years ago) link
not read any neal stephenson yet (cryptonomicon lies in wait) but isn't that his turf
― c'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas le beurre (imago), Monday, 25 February 2013 14:51 (eleven years ago) link
kinda :/ that 9/11 seemingly plays a pivotal part in this (yes, I read Falling Man, no it wasn't very good) but if anyone's gonna extract something profound from it, well...
just seems like so much else he could write about in the contemporary world, hopefully 9/11 will be ghosted beyond, beneath and above much like world war 1 in ATD (and world war 2 in GR)
― c'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas le beurre (imago), Monday, 25 February 2013 14:55 (eleven years ago) link
I don't think they're really comparable (despite what… Charles Shaar Murray maybe?… says on the back of Cryptonomicon about it being like Gravity's Rainbow - that might be one of the wrongest points of comparison I've seen on a blurb).
Makes me a little anxious that he's taking this on, but then it's Pynchon, so pretty sure I will enjoy it at least.
― woof, Monday, 25 February 2013 14:59 (eleven years ago) link
as far as pivotal california moments go, this is a great one to pick.
― s.clover, Monday, 25 February 2013 15:08 (eleven years ago) link
have they said how many pages it is?
― just sayin, Monday, 25 February 2013 15:09 (eleven years ago) link
Haven't read Cryptonomicon, because I was afraid it would be like attempted GR Redux--also oh no, not WWII again---but did like Diamond Age, where his developing novelistic sensibility, incl reflections of a citizen of the world and grown-ass man, overtake cyberpunk tropes/cliches.
― dow, Monday, 25 February 2013 15:18 (eleven years ago) link
yeah, that wasn't even meant as a slam on Stephenson (who I run hot & cold on) it's just that he's not really like Pynchon - there's some subject matter/theme overlap, but Stephenson is pulpy, fun, not really a stylist, nowhere near as extreme, just not really in the same zone at all
― woof, Monday, 25 February 2013 15:28 (eleven years ago) link
yeah and can well imagine him wincing when first seeing that blurb on the jacket, invoking comparisons to GR
― dow, Monday, 25 February 2013 15:45 (eleven years ago) link
So this will be the latest period Pynchon has written about ever. Excited for that. Hope it will be a long one.
― Frederik B, Monday, 25 February 2013 16:03 (eleven years ago) link
I mean a number of his novels were contemporary at the time he wrote them...
― s.clover, Monday, 25 February 2013 16:18 (eleven years ago) link
Oh, of course. But they aren't any more, was my point. There are so many interconnections in his fictions, so many things that he describes the foundation of in his historical fiction, and then shows what happened to it in the sixties in other books. I'm excited to see those threads being taken up to the millenium.
― Frederik B, Monday, 25 February 2013 16:23 (eleven years ago) link
this, really
― c'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas le beurre (imago), Monday, 25 February 2013 19:21 (eleven years ago) link
First page of bleeding edge
http://gothamist.com/2013/04/13/read_the_first_page_of_thomas_pynch.php
― I am using your worlds, Saturday, 20 April 2013 15:52 (eleven years ago) link
I'm excited
― I am using your worlds, Saturday, 20 April 2013 15:56 (eleven years ago) link
that last para is vintage stuff. "Sunlight reflected from apartment windows has begun to show up in blurry patterns on the fronts of the buildings across the street. Two-part buses, new on the routes, creep the crosstown blocks like giant insects. Steel shutters are being rolled up, early trucks are double-parking, guys are out with hoses cleaning off their piece of sidewalk. Unhoused people sleep in doorways, scavengers with huge plastic sacks full of empty beer and soda cans head for the markets to cash them in, work crews wait un front of buildings for the super to show up. Runners are bouncing up and down at the curb waiting for the lights to change."
So many perfect constructions. "new on the routes" -- the aside with the sense of absolute locatedness in time. "unhoused people." the informality of "guys are out," the persistant image of hosing-down time. The building sense of anticipation and movement out of snapshots of static description.
Earlier, the intense present-tense nowness of "This morning, all up and down the streets, what looks like every Callery Pear tree on the Upper West Side has popped overnight into identical white clouds of pear blossoms."
The description (which bears the marks of being written by pynchon) makes me worry this will be a bit slight. But I didn't find IV slight, so maybe I don't have anything to worry about.
― Chuck E was a hero to most (s.clover), Sunday, 21 April 2013 01:27 (eleven years ago) link
I found Inherent Vice slight.....ly hilarious <3
― Emeralds should have definitely done this before they split imo (bernard snowy), Sunday, 21 April 2013 11:17 (eleven years ago) link
I think of that "yikes, scoob" scene from IV all the time.
― Chuck E was a hero to most (s.clover), Sunday, 21 April 2013 17:54 (eleven years ago) link
froot loops again, i guess.
― j., Saturday, 4 May 2013 06:41 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.vulture.com/2013/08/thomas-pynchon-bleeding-edge.html
― alimosina, Monday, 9 September 2013 16:26 (ten years ago) link
Really, the guy lives on the Upper West Side and we don't have a photo of him?
― eris bueller (lukas), Tuesday, 10 September 2013 08:19 (ten years ago) link
New book kinda...sucks. Does not live up to Inherent Vice.
― Beatrix Kiddo (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 15 September 2013 03:28 (ten years ago) link
on a subtextural level there's a cleverness to it but it takes reading the whole thing and musing for a bit on why it's so disappointing in a traditional sense.
― Beatrix Kiddo (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 00:25 (ten years ago) link
I dreamt I read it last night. And liked it. I couldn't explain why.
― Frederik B, Tuesday, 17 September 2013 07:06 (ten years ago) link
flicked through this in a bookshop last night... opening quote from donald e. westlake!
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 17 September 2013 08:30 (ten years ago) link
oh man, today's the day. tempted to play hooky from work.
― "Dave Barlow" is the name Lou uses on sabermetrics baseball sites (s.clover), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 13:01 (ten years ago) link
I thought it was today but saw it in Waterstone's on Saturday. 100pp in; I'm really enjoying it so far.
― woof, Tuesday, 17 September 2013 13:08 (ten years ago) link
It's got its own thread by the way:
Bleeding Edge, by Thomas Pynchon. Due September 2013
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 17 September 2013 13:09 (ten years ago) link
ohhh the cultural references seem like they're going to make me sad
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Friday, 20 September 2013 20:52 (ten years ago) link
So I re-read GR last week and I was wondering what other reading this lead you to.
I think I have a copy of Scholem's book on the Kaballah, read a good article on the German genocide/occupation in South-West Africa, read some good amount of Rilke, and this makes me want to return to the latter's work. The Erotics of suicide bit was fantastic, echoes of Mishima in a way.
I want something on the Tarot? Is there a guide anywhere?
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 3 November 2013 09:17 (ten years ago) link
this may be nuts, and more knowledgable people may be able to point elsewhere (sure AE Waite wrote something that might even pass for scholarly) but I really like The Book of Thoth by Aleister Crowley.
― Fizzles, Sunday, 3 November 2013 11:00 (ten years ago) link