GR was my first Pynchon and I finished that about a week ago, and just read Inherent Vice and adored it. That being said, I’d like to get back into the heavier Pynchon. What novel would you guys recommend next? Thanks!
Just finished GR, inspired to write a bit. I'm not a writer, so feel free to shit on it, just didn't know what to do with myself after GR.
While the Earth tears underneath, you watch.
Not in frozen fear, not because you fancy a fall, not because you knew it to happen, not even because it’s a wondrous sight, land lacerated in an explicit manner, a chiseled cosmic cleave.
No, you watch because it’s happening. It’s not your choice, should it be? You lost choices long ago, silently, oblivious. Chunks of soul loitering about, animalistic, driven solely by its own nature, remnants removed by your greed. Well, not your greed, but greed instilled, greed ingrained, decadent desire scientifically placed, Pandopicly rooted in voids of consciousness, so they can annex your choice.
No one knows why the Earth is rupturing; maybe you do, maybe you’re apathetic. There are those responsible, shirking the rifts of retribution, these public puppeteers governing strings of attention, marionettes twitched for a performance only those above see. But even they don’t know.
It is without feeling. The choices imperceptibly dissolve you into that malleable malaise, meteors incinerated in the blue, to the concluding conformic reduction you’ve been booted into craving.
As the Earth spreads your limbs, feet repelling each other, the binary world's devastating rhythm, you must choose. You must jump, with thinned legs to distant to generate a leap high enough… too strained to make it to a side… delusion’s decaying echoes… gravity’s global grasp… this hypnotic hell…
What can we do but watch?
The weight of reading has been lifted off my shoulders, but the burden of thinking about it has just begun. What the hell was that last chapter? I have my own thoughts, but very curious to hear what those more experienced have to say. It is my favorite thing I have ever read. I feel almost guilty saying that because of how much went over my head and the thoughts of "you need to read it multiple times to understand," but I cannot deny the overwhelming oneirism (added to vocab after reading, thanks TP) I'm feeling right now. GR was my first Pynchon. What should I read next?