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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2891 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 12, 2025

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I finished my reread of Vineland. It is roughly as I remembered it: something of a mess with not-fully-fleshed-out ideas and plotlines going all over the place, but perhaps the strongest attempt by Pynchon to write some real characters instead of his usual 1D cartoon characters. It feels like a braindump to get rid of a bunch of quarter-baked ideas that were clogging up his head so he could get down to writing Mason & Dixon and Against the Day.

Interesting. After discovering that One Battle After Another was based on Vineland, I've wanted to read it to get a feel for the source material, all the more so since I made my way through Gravity's Rainbow and well remember the sense of,"what in the actual fuck did I just read," stupefied awe that I felt afterwards. I kinda want to read it both less and more at the same time after that description!

I made my way through Gravity's Rainbow

You're a stronger man than me. I thought "what in the actual fuck did I just read" and closed the book about five pages in.

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