Long Books: or Nine-Hundred Pages of Creamy Ejaculate
if i may say something patently ridiculous a long book is an act of violence
arrogance
indulgence
masturbation
allow me to wow you with the volume and creaminess of my ejaculate
i hate long books because they are rarely long for a good reason
the bones of the story is usually simple because all stories are simple and distill down to [1] somebody wants something and they put a lot of effort into getting it OR [2] somebody wants something they shouldn’t want and someone else refuses to give it to them OR [3] someone did something they shouldn’t have done and now we’re trying to figure out who to punish for it
there is no other story because we shaved monkeys are not that complex
long books are usually long because the author is [1] showing off OR [2] insecure and thinks that the length of a book indicates the quality of the reading experience
most modern novels have 80 to 100 pages of literal filler by which i mean random philosophical tangents or irrelevant side plots or pedantic exposition and snoozeworthy “world-building”
worse yet are the many authors all of them men from what i can tell who seem to take pride in formulating their writing in the most obtuse and “artful” style possible
Now there grows among all the rooms, replacing the night’s old smoke, alcohol and sweat, the fragile, musaceous odor of Breakfast; flowery, permeating, surprising, more than the color of winter sunlight, taking over not so much through any brute pungency or volume as by the high intricacy to the weaving of its molecules, sharing the conjuror’s secret by which - though it is not often Death is told so clearly to fuck off - the living genetic chains prove even labyrinthine enough to preserve some human face down ten or twenty generations…so the same assertion-through-structure allows this war morning’s banana fragrance to meander, repossess, prevail. Is there any reason not to open every window, and let the kind scent blanket all Chelsea? As a spell, against falling objects… 1
902 pages of this gorgeous shit
i’ll say it again NINE-HUNDRED-and-TWO gorgeous pages of this utter shit
Rebuttal Rebutted
so don’t read it i hear you say and you are absolutely correct HOWEVER i am also entitled to be angered and frustrated by it and to use that anger and frustration to focus my own efforts to write stories that don’t brutalise the reader with long-dick-face-slapping like you see in the worst kind of pornos
by which i mean that i like Pynchon’s novel
i like the setting
i like the characters
i want to know what they think and what is happening to them
i am angry because the Grand the Great the Genius Mr Pynchon insists on telling me this otherwise engaging and compelling and evocative story in a way that makes it almost impossible to read
Challenge: Rejected
there is a not-entirely-terrible argument to be made that art should not give up its message easily
understanding should take some effort and it behooves the audience to put that effort in
i do not disagree
i do disagree that it is the author’s right and requirement to make that effort as long and arduous as possible
Salvador Dali painted images that were complex and take a great deal of effort to understand BUT they never made any effort to obscure the subject
Magritte painted images that were simple BUT require exactly as much effort to fully understand BUT all of his effort seems to have been put into making that complex message clear and intelligible
and yes as you have no doubt already guessed i think Picasso and all modern art is pretentious obfuscatory bullshit
this is where in my not at all humble opinion Pynchon and every maximalist writer like him absolutely shits the bed
his theme appears to be simple BUT i don’t actually know because i have to put so much fucking effort into decoding what the fuck he is even talking about that I inevitably give up after 27 pages 2
he is absolutely entitled to write in this way but i am equally entitled to assert that in doing this he made a terrible mistake and wasted years of his life producing beautiful unreadable bullshit
Gravity’s Rainbow is an artistic failure and seems to me to be motivated by the arrogant belief that the purpose of a novel is to demonstrate one’s genius to the world
i am likely wrong about this point but i am also very angry and so i am therefore right
i feel safe in asserting that GR is a failure because nobody actually ever finishes the book and so whatever he was trying to say languishes unread and un-understood EVEN THOUGH the book itself has sold millions of copies based on its reputation as a work of genius
genius
codswallop and horseshit
challenge the reader
yes
do it
but don’t insult them and degrade and demean them by making them feel stupid because they can’t parse the intricately woven cryptography of your solipsystic masturbatory prose style
I’m Not a Genius, So What Do I Know
i admit that i’m not a genius BUT i’m also no dummy
i get the point
i really do
i just think it’s stupid and frustrating and inconsiderate and rude
i don’t ever want to make my readers feel that way
which is my only point
Pynchon et. al is welcome to wave his dick around but that doesn’t mean i have to suck on it
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