what is the harder book to read between the two
what is the harder book to read between the two
The second because its mumbo-jumbo
what's more complex
Nothing touches Finnegan's Wake.
I don't see how that relates to the OP's question; a comparison of two novels, not a search for the most complex.Originally Posted by Pike Bishop
I'm sorry, North Star, I wasn't aware you were the thread monitor. I simply made a tangential, but related, comment. I suggest you stop worrying about other posters' comments and focus on your own.
Haven't read Dahlgren. Not sure why Gravity's Rainbow has a reputation for difficulty. It's a fun romp.
I love Gravity's Rainbow, and have read it three times, but I still see the difficulty. The plot structure can be difficult to follow, particularly since characters frenetically exit and enter, as they often do in Pynchon's novels. Also, Pynchon's ironic and sometimes baroque narrative descriptions can broach a stream-of-conscientiousness level that can also be hard to follow. Also, the science in the novel--whether it's the fantastical such as Slothrop's particular "ability" or it's the actual science regarding the rockets can also be hard to comprehend.
So, it is a romp, but it is hardly an easy one.
I wouldn't describe GR as easy, but it was nowhere near as difficult as I expected. I've seen people describe it as gibberish, that nothing happens for hundreds of pages, nothing makes sense, etc. I was expecting something completely surreal, like an 800 page Naked Lunch, but it's really not that bad. There is a plot, with characters who have motives. They go places and do things which have consequences. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end. I'm not entirely sure what it all meant, and I did lose track of the last 50 pages, but I think that was kind of the point. I wouldn't say it was any more difficult than Faulkner. Probably more comparable to something like Neuromancer. I found it a lot easier and more enjoyable than Infinite Jest.
Not tackled Joyce yet. Ulysses seems to be the high water mark of difficult books. I've looked at Finnegan's Wake and it may as well have been written in another language so far as I'm concerned. Not heard of Dhalgren.
It's easy if one routinely makes simple annotations when reading, like a list of characters and a short descriptor as they are introduced. I always do this when reading things like Pynchon or Gaddis. How else does one keep the Bongo-Sharftsburys straight?, to cite a more difficult Pynchon novel.
Annotations (notes) are definitely a must for difficult novels. My copies of Gravity's Rainbow and Ulysses are just filthy.
what's harder between Dhalgren or Ulysses?
Gravity's Rainbow begins and ends with an imminent nuclear attack and, as I understand it, represents the distingregation of human values and language in the face of potential nuclear destruction.
I find it profoundly homophobic, but I have a gay friend who loves it. (The bomb in the closing pages has somebody's bum boy tied to the nossle.)
I read through it with a pencil to mark the bits I understood.
It is partly based on Ian Fleming's James Bond novel Moonraker.
What's Dahlgren?
Previously JonathanB
The more I read, the more I shall covet to read. Robert Burton The Anatomy of Melancholy Partion3, Section 1, Member 1, Subsection 1
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