Reading V while working as a part time janitor at a large shopping mall, during the night shift, was a fun and mysterious book. I found the crocodile hunting comedic and the colonization pieces disturbing. So yeah, good book. I have yet to read other books written by Nabokov, other than Pale Fire - great poem.
Good review but there is one question about MacGuffins. V. is an actual character in the book. She is not a MacGuffin because we get the course of her life through the different periods from the past. One way to look at the book is that it is an indirect biography of her life and where it went, from the time when she was 19 to her death in Malta. In addition, she is a symbol in the novel of what is lost when we overly mechanize and go away from the "goddess." In the chronology, we see V. transform from a young lady to a thirty-somthing year old woman with a false eye eventually to a woman that has been turned into a body of objects as the bad priest where we see her die. One of the ways you can look at the novel is that, in general, we can't really put together the whole picture. Pynchon makes is work hard to understand the book, and in the end, after throwing stumbling blocks and contradictory evidence, he doesn't give us everything.You might even argue he almost doesn't give us anything. When you say MacGuffin, I think you mean V. is a MacGuffin for Stencil. A MacGuffin is nothing more than a tool that is used to make a story go forward. But Stencil chose to pursue V. because there is the slim possibility that she is his mother. If you look at the dates, the year when Stencil was born (1901) and the moments V. encountered the father, it is not impossible that she could have been his mother. Also, Stencil may be the type of person that needs a life quest and he found one in the entity of V. found among his father's papers after his death. Again, Pynchon gives us no real answers about any of this. A MacGuffin is arguably interchangeable. You can simply plug in anything to make the story go forward. In the case of V., without the mysterious woman that shows up under different aliases, there is no novel.
If you haven’t finished reading all of Pynchon already I highly recommend ending with Against the Day. Has everything you’d want out of Pynchon novel and actually wraps up everything somewhat conclusively.
Please help me. I've read Crying of Lot 49, Inherent Vice, Bleeding Edge, most of Slow Learner and Journey into the Mind of Watts, *but* ... I'm just not 'getting it'. Every review of his major works leads me to believe I should love it all, *but* ... I read 25 pages of Gravity's Rainbow and kept reminding myself that I need to let go and let it happen. I'm starting to question my ability to read well, but I've absolutely enjoyed the challenging style of Faulkner, especially Absalom, Absalom! Any advice is appreciated since the reviews all point to Pynchon's worldview being something I will appreciate.
@@Barklordit takes a bit but when you get to Tyrone Slothrop being introduced in GR, it becomes a comedy-drama like Dr Strangelove. When you start to follow Slothrop there are heartbreaking passages about war torn Europe, the evil of Nazi Germany, beautiful love stories-however the catch is the prose is really difficult to read.
@@BarklordPlease don’t feel pressured to like Pynchon’s more encyclopedic works (Gravity’s Rainbow, Mason & Dixon, Against the Day)! I love them, but at the end of the day, Pynchon’s style, which is most accentuated and on display in these bigger works, just isn’t for everyone and that’s okay! When it comes to Gravity’s Rainbow specifically, I would recommend to persevere further than you may feel motivated to (I wasn’t captivated until maybe page 100-130 ish). These books are just doing so much with so many pages that they need longer to ruminate than Lot 49 or any of the other shorter works. Things are more disparate and he casts a much wider net. So yes, you can definitely persevere and strive to put yourself in the deep end, but at the end of the day you shouldn’t be questioning your sanity as a reader just because so-and-so is a well-known author. Remember that Pynchon does have his haters and, while I don’t agree with many of their criticisms, their opinions are still just as valid in a sense.
About the golden screw: in Infinite Jest there is also a story about a character who says to his friend that if he pushes his belly button 3 times his ass will fall off. :)
Thanks for this great coverage. I am just finishing my second Pynchon (Bleeding Edge) having read "Inherent Vice" first a month ago. I am totally in agreement with your views about Pynchon and his incredible writing. I actually enjoyed "Bleeding Edge" even more than "Inherent Vice" as I was in my early 30's at the turn of the millenium so the cultural references he throws around like confetti were all very familiar to me as opposed to "Inherent Vice" which was set in the late 60's. I can thoroughly recommend it. "V" will definitely be on my list having listened to your video though I think "Against the Day" is next as it is already sat on my bookcase 🙂 I have yet to read any Nabakov ...which one whould you recommend I start with ? All the best Ian
Very keen to read 'Bleeding Edge'! With Nabokov, I usually say: - if you want to read him at his best, you can't go wrong with 'Lolita', although 'Ada, or Ardor' is another very strong contender. - my personal favourite is 'Pale Fire'. - a lighthearted introduction is 'Pnin'. - I've yet to read it, but apparently 'Invitation to a Beheading' is superb, extremely Kafkaesque (some argue to the point of plagiarism). And I know it's an enormous stretch to recommend this without having read the author, but 'Speak, Memory' is an autobiography and is just absolutely stunning.
I still have Nabokov as my #1, bc of the short stories, and the prose (only slightly edging Pynchon on that front bc I prefer the musicality of his). But Pynchon is in my top 5, with V. being my favorite of his.
You just earned a new subscriber! I enjoyed your review of V. It's a strange, complex, impressive and quite apocalyptic book, and what makes it more stupefying is he wrote it when he was 26 years old. 26! The minor feedback that I have is that you should have more eye contact and less fidgeting (e.g. scratching your shoulder, etc.). Other than that, your review is great. I like that you take down notes and read some passages and add your thoughts about the said passages. It gives more things to think about. Keep up the good work. I would like to see you review more of Pynchon (particularly Against the Day and Mason & Dixon), DeLillo and McCarthy. Also, speaking of notes, can you do a video on how you take down your notes? I would like to take down notes for my books but I don't know how.
Reading V while working as a part time janitor at a large shopping mall, during the night shift, was a fun and mysterious book. I found the crocodile hunting comedic and the colonization pieces disturbing. So yeah, good book. I have yet to read other books written by Nabokov, other than Pale Fire - great poem.
P.S. I would suggest reading the novel Ship of Theseus by J. J. Abrams and Doug Dorst, fascinating and artsy. :^D.
Oh crud !!!! The nose job scene! That made me sick to my stomach. Lol. I had to skip that part.
Good review but there is one question about MacGuffins. V. is an actual character in the book. She is not a MacGuffin because we get the course of her life through the different periods from the past. One way to look at the book is that it is an indirect biography of her life and where it went, from the time when she was 19 to her death in Malta. In addition, she is a symbol in the novel of what is lost when we overly mechanize and go away from the "goddess." In the chronology, we see V. transform from a young lady to a thirty-somthing year old woman with a false eye eventually to a woman that has been turned into a body of objects as the bad priest where we see her die. One of the ways you can look at the novel is that, in general, we can't really put together the whole picture. Pynchon makes is work hard to understand the book, and in the end, after throwing stumbling blocks and contradictory evidence, he doesn't give us everything.You might even argue he almost doesn't give us anything. When you say MacGuffin, I think you mean V. is a MacGuffin for Stencil. A MacGuffin is nothing more than a tool that is used to make a story go forward. But Stencil chose to pursue V. because there is the slim possibility that she is his mother. If you look at the dates, the year when Stencil was born (1901) and the moments V. encountered the father, it is not impossible that she could have been his mother. Also, Stencil may be the type of person that needs a life quest and he found one in the entity of V. found among his father's papers after his death. Again, Pynchon gives us no real answers about any of this. A MacGuffin is arguably interchangeable. You can simply plug in anything to make the story go forward. In the case of V., without the mysterious woman that shows up under different aliases, there is no novel.
If you haven’t finished reading all of Pynchon already I highly recommend ending with Against the Day. Has everything you’d want out of Pynchon novel and actually wraps up everything somewhat conclusively.
Please help me.
I've read Crying of Lot 49, Inherent Vice, Bleeding Edge, most of Slow Learner and Journey into the Mind of Watts, *but* ...
I'm just not 'getting it'. Every review of his major works leads me to believe I should love it all, *but* ...
I read 25 pages of Gravity's Rainbow and kept reminding myself that I need to let go and let it happen. I'm starting to question my ability to read well, but I've absolutely enjoyed the challenging style of Faulkner, especially Absalom, Absalom!
Any advice is appreciated since the reviews all point to Pynchon's worldview being something I will appreciate.
@@Barklordit takes a bit but when you get to Tyrone Slothrop being introduced in GR, it becomes a comedy-drama like Dr Strangelove. When you start to follow Slothrop there are heartbreaking passages about war torn Europe, the evil of Nazi Germany, beautiful love stories-however the catch is the prose is really difficult to read.
@@BarklordPlease don’t feel pressured to like Pynchon’s more encyclopedic works (Gravity’s Rainbow, Mason & Dixon, Against the Day)! I love them, but at the end of the day, Pynchon’s style, which is most accentuated and on display in these bigger works, just isn’t for everyone and that’s okay! When it comes to Gravity’s Rainbow specifically, I would recommend to persevere further than you may feel motivated to (I wasn’t captivated until maybe page 100-130 ish). These books are just doing so much with so many pages that they need longer to ruminate than Lot 49 or any of the other shorter works. Things are more disparate and he casts a much wider net. So yes, you can definitely persevere and strive to put yourself in the deep end, but at the end of the day you shouldn’t be questioning your sanity as a reader just because so-and-so is a well-known author. Remember that Pynchon does have his haters and, while I don’t agree with many of their criticisms, their opinions are still just as valid in a sense.
Still can’t tell if I will like pynchon or hate him. Either way dope review
About the golden screw: in Infinite Jest there is also a story about a character who says to his friend that if he pushes his belly button 3 times his ass will fall off. :)
Thanks for this great coverage. I am just finishing my second Pynchon (Bleeding Edge) having read "Inherent Vice" first a month ago. I am totally in agreement with your views about Pynchon and his incredible writing.
I actually enjoyed "Bleeding Edge" even more than "Inherent Vice" as I was in my early 30's at the turn of the millenium so the cultural references he throws around like confetti were all very familiar to me as opposed to "Inherent Vice" which was set in the late 60's. I can thoroughly recommend it.
"V" will definitely be on my list having listened to your video though I think "Against the Day" is next as it is already sat on my bookcase 🙂
I have yet to read any Nabakov ...which one whould you recommend I start with ?
All the best
Ian
Very keen to read 'Bleeding Edge'!
With Nabokov, I usually say:
- if you want to read him at his best, you can't go wrong with 'Lolita', although 'Ada, or Ardor' is another very strong contender.
- my personal favourite is 'Pale Fire'.
- a lighthearted introduction is 'Pnin'.
- I've yet to read it, but apparently 'Invitation to a Beheading' is superb, extremely Kafkaesque (some argue to the point of plagiarism).
And I know it's an enormous stretch to recommend this without having read the author, but 'Speak, Memory' is an autobiography and is just absolutely stunning.
I still have Nabokov as my #1, bc of the short stories, and the prose (only slightly edging Pynchon on that front bc I prefer the musicality of his). But Pynchon is in my top 5, with V. being my favorite of his.
You just earned a new subscriber! I enjoyed your review of V. It's a strange, complex, impressive and quite apocalyptic book, and what makes it more stupefying is he wrote it when he was 26 years old. 26!
The minor feedback that I have is that you should have more eye contact and less fidgeting (e.g. scratching your shoulder, etc.).
Other than that, your review is great. I like that you take down notes and read some passages and add your thoughts about the said passages. It gives more things to think about.
Keep up the good work. I would like to see you review more of Pynchon (particularly Against the Day and Mason & Dixon), DeLillo and McCarthy.
Also, speaking of notes, can you do a video on how you take down your notes? I would like to take down notes for my books but I don't know how.