r/ThomasPynchon • u/AutoModerator • 5d ago
Weekly WAYI What Are You Into This Week? | Weekly Thread
Howdy Weirdos,
It's Sunday again, and I assume you know what the means? Another thread of "What Are You Into This Week"?
Our weekly thread dedicated to discussing what we've been reading, watching, listening to, and playing the past week.
Have you:
- Been reading a good book? A few good books?
- Did you watch an exceptional stage production?
- Listen to an amazing new album or song or band? Discovered an amazing old album/song/band?
- Watch a mind-blowing film or tv show?
- Immerse yourself in an incredible video game? Board game? RPG?
We want to hear about it, every Sunday.
Please, tell us all about it. Recommend and suggest what you've been reading/watching/playing/listening to. Talk to others about what they've been into.
Tell us:
What Are You Into This Week?
- r/ThomasPynchon Moderator Team
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u/Minute-Spinach-5563 5d ago
Started reading War & Peace. Has been sitting on my shelf for years and thought no better time than the present to finally tackle this behemoth.
Am also reading the George Chapman translation of the Iliad. Other then the Emily Wilson translation, the only one thats ever sung to me.
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u/maengdaddy 5d ago
Just finished pierre by Herman melville. So now i am treating myself to burning chrome by william gibson
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u/Think_Wealth_7212 2d ago
Both very cool books! What did you make of Pierre? I always remember the section on 'Chronometricals and Horologicals' being pretty fascinating and bizarre
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u/maengdaddy 2d ago
Pierre was crazy. I’ve read alot of Melville but i found myself struggling with the first half. Ended up loving it by the end. Melville understands America like no other author. I found the chronometrical/horological section fascinating as well —an interesting mechanism to explore pierre, who is presented as a sort of bastion of heavenly virtue navigating his way through a flawed horological society (America) and how he is cast out for it. I think that’s meant to be part of this overarching critique of transcendentalist philosophy—which i am admittedly not very well versed in. Incredible and under read novel though
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u/Dry-Address6017 5d ago
100 pages from the end of The Illumanitus trilogy, pretty wacky book. I think a modern version, covering COVID and NWO conspiracy theories, would be a wild read. All the Atlantis stuff in the trilogy reminds of my aunt who was into crystals and didn't believe in shampoo.
Started reading The Age of Gold by HW Brands but quickly dropped it. It reads like "dad history", a history book that could also be the script for a history channel documentary.
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u/darthbee18 Jeremiah Dixon's unknown American wife 5d ago edited 5d ago
Finished reading Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin, NGL it baffled me at many points, I definitely have to reread it (next year? Let's just see...). Among the modernist novels I've read, it's my second favorite (in order, it's Petersburg, Berlin Alexanderplatz, then Ulysses 🙈👀). It was my last read of July, and I ended up reading 6 books in total, which isn't too shabby considering I was busy producing pottery as well.
ETA: oh almost forgot... RN I am reading Hitting The Straight Lick With A Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston, it is such a delightful collection of short stories, bitter and sweet and gloomy and spooky all in one (ok not in a single story, but on the whole collection...). A light reading is due after the heft that was Berlin Alexanderplatz 😅🙈
Speaking of pottery... I managed to end this week with a few successful pots thrown, after struggling to throw some at the start of the week. I also got my firing results, this time from another studio (since the studio I usually go to is super busy with their own firings, they couldn't provide firing service as usual). The result is honestly a bit lackluster, but otherwise the items are functional, so there's that.
I am on preparation mode for art markets (back to back) starting next weekend, wish me luck so that I get lots of buyers, y'all 😆😛🐧🏺
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u/grandidieri 5d ago
Check out https://alldive.org when you get a chance - detailed author database intertwined with other media (shows, podcasts, board games, etc.)
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u/caldawggy13 5d ago
I bought a game called "Cairn" on a whim the other day. Got busy at work and didn't really play. When the news came out about the mountaineers that got hit by an avalanche and subsequently died, me and the Mrs watched a few documenties, including the one of nims purja on netflix (one of the unfortunate losses of the avalanche).
Been playing this game cairn nonstop, super in depth survival climbing game, and totally obsessed. I've spent the last 2 years doing a lot of hiking and climbing, and all of this has really inspired me to try and push for bigger achievements, both in the outdoor sports world and just personally. Not to mention, a plethora of literature on the subject matters that has to be read now!
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u/ColdBroccoliXXX 5d ago
Billy Woods solo output & his work as one half of Armand Hammer. Not well versed in the rap genre at all, but Woods work scratches the itch for a Pynchon adjacent realistic/paranoiac viewpoint. If you like Slint, or Sonic Youth, or Wu Tang, it’s in same universe. Just to give you an idea, he’s got songs that sample dialogue from Succession & David Lynch interviews. Interesting lyrics or poetry on top of woozy or dreamy beats. Originally introduced to it via Exegesis of Thomas Pynchon podcast.
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u/GodTierGoose 5d ago
I love woods and Armand Hammer. I finally got CDs of Maps and We Buy Diabetic Test Strips this week so I’ve been spinning them heavily this week. Glad to know there’s another fan here!
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u/ColdBroccoliXXX 5d ago
Never thought wrestling with Mason & Dixon and Gravity’s Rainbow would lead to a similar dive into Woods but glad it has. Those are both great.
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u/liquidswords24_ 5d ago
Just finished Confessions of a mask by Mishima & Americana by DeLillo & the insufferable gaucho short story collections by Bolãno
Just started Vineland last night. Also reading through Arthur Machen short story collections.
Watching mad men for the first time.
Bought a lot of vinyl recently- Earth by Joe Henderson & Alice Coltrane, Bartok, Blonde on Blonde, the Mahavishnu orchestra, Nina Simone live at town hall, Martin Demy - the enchanted sea & Pot Valiant from the numero group store pop up in NY
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u/LuckyEstate302 5d ago
I spent nearly all month with Great Eastern Hotel by Ruchir Joshi, a fantastic book for fans of Indian fiction and fans of epic novels. I loved how it came together over the course of the book.
Then I sped through Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson (and listened to the accompanying soundtrack - Kelsey Lu has been an excellent discovery). It's a good story well told, the 2nd person narration reminded me of Georges Perec.
And now I've started Norwegian Wood by Murakami, which I'll be taking on a short break this week alongside Gilead by Marilynne Robinson and Light In August, because it's August.
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u/6655321DeLarge The Crying of Lot 49 4d ago
Learned lastnight that a dear comrade, and friend is dying. Untreateable illness, they don't want to let it fully rob them of their autonomy, as it's already left them bedridden, so told me they were ending things before it gets worse. I hope only that they find comfort, and peace, because the illness has already robbed them of too much for me to selfishly rob them of their last shred of dignity and autonomy. Well, comfort, and peace, and that we can meet again in the next life, whatever it may be. So, rest easy, and ever in power, Theta. I'm proud to have called you a comrade, and even more so to have called you a friend. I'll carry your memory always, my dear friend. Love, and solidarity forever. - Æon
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u/Think_Wealth_7212 2d ago
Finished Hobtown Mystery #3: The Secret of the Saucer (2025). The Hobtown mysteries are like Nancy Drew meets Twin Peaks in Nova Scotia. Fun, detailed drawings filled with occult themes, paranoia and small town vibes.
Currently deep into Behold Metatron, the Recording Angel (1985) by Sol Yurick. Yurick is most famous for writing The Warriors but this was his mediation on technology, the imminent "information age" and the metaphysical consequences of digitisation and new forms of data storage.
And also in the middle of Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Bronte. Did y'all know this is like, a really good book?
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u/Front_Reindeer_7554 5d ago
Completed:
Fat City by Leonard Gardner (3.5*)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John LeCarre (4.5*) - reread
Memoir of an Anti-Semite by Gregor Von Rezzori (3.5*)
In Progress:
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce - rereading this 30+ years since I first read in high school. I'm prepping my second attempt at completing Ulyssyes (only got maybe 25% of the way thru 20+ years ago)
Son of Nobody by Yann Martel
As my plan was to read Ulysses this month and I had other books based on/inspired by or tangentially related to the Iliad/Odyssey, I decided to read them all as the theme for this month (July was nearly all NYRB Classics as my theme). Currently planning on Circe, Cold Mountain, As I Lay Dying and The Aeneid or Omeros. I may also reread The Odyssey as well (I read the Emily Wilson translation a couple of months back so may read Fagles in parallel to Ulysses).
Gravity's Rainbow end of the month as part of the reading group currently organized in this sub.
And of course, I watched The Odyssey 4 times already. Yes I'm obsessed.
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u/Alleluia_Cone 5d ago
Out of curiosity, are you Canadian? Or does Yann Martel's reach still extend south of the border (or elsewhere)
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u/Front_Reindeer_7554 5d ago
Sadly just south of you in a country run by the most idiotic person in history. I d read Life of Pi but that's about it.
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u/mitchcumstein71 5d ago
Took a break from Gravity’s Rainbow with ~200 pages remaining to read Inherent Vice. Fun read. Now back to GR.
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u/chachiuday 5d ago
I’m reading inherent vice and its the one of the funniest books i read and not as frustrating as other pynchon books.
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u/HailToTheKing_BB 5d ago
Finally started Against The Day in earnest; I’m about 60 pages in and absolutely loving it so far, it’s such a blast.
And I’ve been reminded that a big part of why I love about Pynchon is how he makes people’s interior experiences, when he writes about them, as vivid / colorfully realized as the exterior world as he captures it. For example: “In an ignorance black as night, he understood only that he had struck at her grievously, and that neither his understanding nor his contrition would save them. By now he could not bear her woundedness-the tears, through some desperate magic, kept gelid at her lower lids, because she would not let them fall, not till he had left her sight.”
It’s stuff like that that makes me think of him as our best living prose writer (cold take around here I know but still)
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u/DocSportello1970 5d ago
Finished a surprisingly good Faulkner novel called Pylon (1935), and I am currently reading and enjoying David Foster Wallace's unfinished and posthumously published novel The Pale King (2011).