Love all of this, Blake! Totally agree about the rush to judgment, the way pop culture mechanics have taught us to rank everything because it's only criticism they know how to do anymore. People were saying the same thing about Vineland in the 90s. "We waited all this time, for this?" And now look where we are. Or how quick people were to dismiss Inherent Vice as a lesser work, not realizing TP wrote it at the same time he was writing Gravity's Rainbow while witnessing a new era unfold in post-Manson America. Maybe we'll think differently of Shadow Ticket when we're battling brown shirts in the streets. Oh, wait...
hahah ty Jim great points all around. i think ppl just like to position themselves above things they can't wrap their heads around beyond surface level
I believe there's secondhand evidence given by his friends in one of those "Where the fuck is Thomas Pynchon?" pieces in one of the big rags when Bleeding Edge came out that pionted towards him working on Inherent Vice. Mason & Dixon, and Against the Day, at basically the same time, presumably before the metameat in Vineland even existed, throughout the 70's while he lived in the beachhouse and later couch surfed up and down the 1 and the 101 on the north coast to Arcata, back down, and around again, before he did eventually move back to the center of the world, which we all know has to be not my desk (though, tell me that) but New York City.
(The amazing thing was his friends, and enemies, and frienemies, in the article, were all SO devoted to telling anecdotes, stories, et al. But giving up other than some interesting new tidbits, nothing about Pynchon himself, current wereabouts etc.)
Same for me. I bought it quick but waited a few months before actually reading it. The opening disappointed still, the sheer weight of expectation just too much for the pages to really bear. But it didn't take too much time to realise this is his most bitingly contemporary novel, and much more effective than Bleeding Edge. The novel critiques capitalism (through cheese), compliance with authority in the US, studies the collapse of Europe and weaves through the sense that Something Awful is about to happen. No, it's not as good as GR or V or Vineland, but ...I think I'm in a minority but I think its brilliant. Jeez if the rest of the contempoary lit wheezebags could "dial it in" like this...
As you said, the ending really moved me, there's a beautiful and pristine innocence in those words, somebody who doesn't know how happy he is from being oblivious to what's happening in the shadows. I also felt that the book is about all those futures we keep endlessly planning as we tread with the hope of better days, but then reality comes in and we can't escape it, so we try to settle in with the hand we were dealt. It kinda felt like a Bildungsroman in a weird way.
excellent conclusion, i definitely felt the ending connected so much under the hood in a way that is easy to miss - the short scene where Hicks calls his mom really drives it home in a way he rarely tips his cards to show - unique subtlety
Love this. I feel like we've always had to read Pynchon against all the noise surrounding Pynchon, not that that noise itself can't be its own sort of pleasure. I felt a wisp of sadness in Shadow Ticket, or was it me just being wistful that this might be his last? "Getting sentimental, kid, better watch 'at, once."
I am a pretty big Pynchon fan. I am also probably in the minority in loving Mason & Dixon the way that I do (second only to Gravity’s Rainbow).
I agree with the assessment that most of the book reviewers tend to barely read, and skimming something as dense as Pynchon seems sort of strange. I think part of the reason for the mixed response for the novel has to do with our current landscape of extreme paranoia, conspiracy theories being proven 100% correct, and the corporatization of the Internet at larger. Basically, what was predicted by Pynchon has, to some extent, become commonplace, and it is wild how on the nose he was with his insight, even after all these decades.
This book is on my “to read” pile and I’ll probably get to it once the weather is a little nicer. It is hard going to read postmodern literature in a frozen wasteland.
Love all of this, Blake! Totally agree about the rush to judgment, the way pop culture mechanics have taught us to rank everything because it's only criticism they know how to do anymore. People were saying the same thing about Vineland in the 90s. "We waited all this time, for this?" And now look where we are. Or how quick people were to dismiss Inherent Vice as a lesser work, not realizing TP wrote it at the same time he was writing Gravity's Rainbow while witnessing a new era unfold in post-Manson America. Maybe we'll think differently of Shadow Ticket when we're battling brown shirts in the streets. Oh, wait...
hahah ty Jim great points all around. i think ppl just like to position themselves above things they can't wrap their heads around beyond surface level
oh the vainglory of "WE WAITED ALL THIS TIME" lol
It's such a perfect portrait of the collapse of the literary culture complex. And that's just the first tower.
I believe there's secondhand evidence given by his friends in one of those "Where the fuck is Thomas Pynchon?" pieces in one of the big rags when Bleeding Edge came out that pionted towards him working on Inherent Vice. Mason & Dixon, and Against the Day, at basically the same time, presumably before the metameat in Vineland even existed, throughout the 70's while he lived in the beachhouse and later couch surfed up and down the 1 and the 101 on the north coast to Arcata, back down, and around again, before he did eventually move back to the center of the world, which we all know has to be not my desk (though, tell me that) but New York City.
(The amazing thing was his friends, and enemies, and frienemies, in the article, were all SO devoted to telling anecdotes, stories, et al. But giving up other than some interesting new tidbits, nothing about Pynchon himself, current wereabouts etc.)
Guess I'm pulling down Shadow Ticket now.
printing out those first 4 paras
Same for me. I bought it quick but waited a few months before actually reading it. The opening disappointed still, the sheer weight of expectation just too much for the pages to really bear. But it didn't take too much time to realise this is his most bitingly contemporary novel, and much more effective than Bleeding Edge. The novel critiques capitalism (through cheese), compliance with authority in the US, studies the collapse of Europe and weaves through the sense that Something Awful is about to happen. No, it's not as good as GR or V or Vineland, but ...I think I'm in a minority but I think its brilliant. Jeez if the rest of the contempoary lit wheezebags could "dial it in" like this...
well said Gabriel! i'm with ya
Great line: Thus, the artist is dead, not because they’ve died, but because they’ve ceased to contribute to our ideation of why we’re alive.
As you said, the ending really moved me, there's a beautiful and pristine innocence in those words, somebody who doesn't know how happy he is from being oblivious to what's happening in the shadows. I also felt that the book is about all those futures we keep endlessly planning as we tread with the hope of better days, but then reality comes in and we can't escape it, so we try to settle in with the hand we were dealt. It kinda felt like a Bildungsroman in a weird way.
excellent conclusion, i definitely felt the ending connected so much under the hood in a way that is easy to miss - the short scene where Hicks calls his mom really drives it home in a way he rarely tips his cards to show - unique subtlety
Love this. I feel like we've always had to read Pynchon against all the noise surrounding Pynchon, not that that noise itself can't be its own sort of pleasure. I felt a wisp of sadness in Shadow Ticket, or was it me just being wistful that this might be his last? "Getting sentimental, kid, better watch 'at, once."
good point about always having to read through the noise - i think yr right it's part of the experience and wouldn't be the same w/o
def felt that sadness too - almost wistfulness or solemnity, which made even the jokes feel double-edged. glad we were in similar boats
i can't imagine homie doesn't have 2-4 more in drawers
I am a pretty big Pynchon fan. I am also probably in the minority in loving Mason & Dixon the way that I do (second only to Gravity’s Rainbow).
I agree with the assessment that most of the book reviewers tend to barely read, and skimming something as dense as Pynchon seems sort of strange. I think part of the reason for the mixed response for the novel has to do with our current landscape of extreme paranoia, conspiracy theories being proven 100% correct, and the corporatization of the Internet at larger. Basically, what was predicted by Pynchon has, to some extent, become commonplace, and it is wild how on the nose he was with his insight, even after all these decades.
This book is on my “to read” pile and I’ll probably get to it once the weather is a little nicer. It is hard going to read postmodern literature in a frozen wasteland.
Good point on his insights not seeming surprising now that they're obvious -a perfect excuse to dismiss everything else
that's cool yr a M&D head, one of the ones i was never able to gel with but i look fwd to trying again for the 4th time
‘the thing we can all feel but cannot see because it doesn’t have a body, but our body has it’ damn. there’s the shadow ticket right there.
been waiting to hear yr thoughts! excited to start it and grateful for anything he’s pushing out b4 dying. fuckin’ soldier
fuckin soldier 4 real <3