Slow Learner

I read Pynchon's intro weeks ago on a sample. That's pretty much the best thing in this book; still it's interesting to watch development in style and motifs through these stories, which were first published 1960-1964.

The Small Rain A lot of this is a pretty conventional short story, not a bad one though, about an army battalion sent to clear up after a natural disaster. Presumably a semi-autobiographical element: some of the main characters are rank & file soldiers their comrades think are more than smart enough for other work. An amazing few sentences almost summarise why I like Pynchon, as well as being an idea close to my own heart.
What I mean is something like a closed circuit. Everybody on the same frequency. And after a while you forget about the rest of the spectrum and start believing that this is the only frequency that counts or is real. While outside, all up and down the land, there are these wonderful colors and x-rays and ultraviolets going on.
Most books feel to me like they're stuck in that one place. Reading Pynchon is being on the road and seeing all the other spectacular stuff, - though with someone who seems to share some of the same opinions and neuroses, and apparently contains much of one's own general knowledge plus that of a few friends with different specialties.

Low-lands Another fairly conventional story, about an ex-Navy guy and his drinking partners (one with the fabulous name Rocco Squamuglia, Squamuglia later making an appearance in Lot 49 as a fictional Italian city-state) – though it's more anarchic than 'The Small Rain' and in the last few pages spills into a fantasy section reminiscent of a children's book. One of the things I've really enjoyed about Pynchon so far is that his writing actually distracts me from a lot of the stuff other books make me dwell on, and so it is much more fun. 'Low-lands' was an exception as I found myself yet again tiresomely mulling over old relationships.
(I thought Cindy was pretty intolerant; the relationship I had which worked best for the longest time was with someone who sometimes disappeared on multi-day drinking binges and might turn up a couple of hundred miles away. Other people would have soon thought about each of us “I've had enough of this shit” but we rarely thought of it as shit and accepted stuff, just as we each tended to accept other people who were quite weird. However, rather like Miriam in what seems like a satirical scene in the next story 'Entropy' – albeit without breaking windows - I was upset by the same ex's views on philosophy of science. Though we still remain friends fourteen years after first meeting.)

Entropy The whole thing must be intended to represent entropy; it meanders and moves in a way that would be easier to draw as a shape or a graph than to summarise with words. Partly an account of an anarchic lads' house party from the Beat era when jazz was the coolest thing. In other scenes a couple named Aubade and Callisto, apparently living in a greenhouse in the garden, ponder various cultural and scientific phenomena. It's very rare I even consider applying the word pretentious – to those scenes I did. Though A&C are still rather sweet.
A development of immersive digression, fantasy blurring with reality and, well, entropy from the previous piece. There are a couple of paragraphs here better appreciated by someone with a thorough knowledge of physics. As it was, I wasn't sure whether a character's idea followed, or if it was a mystical/pseudo tangent from the science. Like quantum mysticism only with thermodynamics.

Under the Rose Late Victorian British Empire spy spoof with a minor robot presence – another part of the case for “Pynchon invented steampunk”. Most of it was somehow uninvolving and a chore, and I kept wishing I was reading more John Le Carre instead – even though the idea of this story sounds great and there are some marvellous character names, including Hugh Bongo-Shaftsbury.

The Secret Integration Pynchon writes Peanuts. This story, three years and the other side of V from its predecessor, is so much better. Also it's longer which gives the author more space to freewheel. There isn't exactly a beginning, a middle and an end. A bunch of nice and well-meaning pre-teen mostly boys of varying degrees of eccentricity (including reluctant child genius Grover as the brains of the operation) – not to mention their dog - get up to various escapades in a middle American town including home made explosives, pranks with water balloons, being an Alcoholics Anonymous buddy to an old jazz musician, and trying to thwart local racists including their parents. Really really charming.

These stories aren't amazing, a bit of a fans-only thing. Saw one post mentioning they'd been a set text on the reviewer's course – I'm not sure why a tutor would set an author's poorest work. But they were good enough that I enjoyed them as a break from the duller parts of the contemporary novel I was also reading, The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner.

This one is definitely for the die-hards and completionists, Slow Learner: Early Stories is probably most intriguing to Pynchonites merely for the introductory material where we learn a lot about Pynchon's fictioneer-ing process (and progress) from the man himself. When the intro opens with the author warning of the "juvenalia" that lurks in the stories in the collection, he's kind of put himself into a defensive position. Sometimes this is a rhetorical move, but in Pynchon's case, turns out that there's fair reason for the reader to be warned. At least 3 of these stories are mediocre, one is good, and the other is clearly superior.

Even the better stories here offer only the slimmest glimmer of Pynchon's heights across all of his fictions. So the real value here for the Pynchonite is to see the progress of a genius in growth. There's a reassuring thing to see The Master struggling with mediocre short stories early in his career, as if to remind you that greatness can be a process. That said, I think most fans of Pynchon would best be served reading Slow Learner last, as I have. With a view of the full breadth of all of his work, it's really a good way to learn how he arrived with books like Gravity's Rainbow and even Inherent Vice (with the kind of surreal spy/detective story in "Under the Rose").

There is no more new Pynchon for me. This is profoundly sad. Re-reading Pynchon is always a delight, but if Mr. Paranoid's listening, throw us a bone, man!

Introduction: It's so strange reading Pynchon as Pynchon, directly addressing the reader. Because there are no interviews, no letters, no photographs even, he's become to me a mythic figure, something rather than somebody. But in this introduction (which really should be read as an afterword, if you're spoiler-phobic), he writes pretty casually and frankly about his early days as a writer. And he's not a fan of his juvenilia, which he makes abundantly clear as he dissects each story, pointing out his embarrassment over his "tin ear" for dialogue or the faux pas of originating a story from a theme, rather than letting the theme and story arise naturally from its characters. Seeing how self-critical he is over these stories, it makes me surprised and thankful that we have this collection at all. Maybe he was running a bit low on funds and needed a quick payday, which is absolutely fine with me.

The Small Rain: I never would have guessed this was written by Pynchon. It feels more like a Hemingway/Heller/Kerouac hybrid. Interesting by virtue of its dissimilarity, but not something I particular enjoyed or will remember much about. Two stars

Low-lands: This, on the other hand, feels very much like Pynchon, like it could have been lifted straight out of V. It contains at least one great character and one really strange but awesome set-piece. As Pynchon himself says, it's more of a character study than a story, but I'd say it's a really nice character study. Four stars. 

Entropy: I read all the words and knew most of them, but put all together the way they were, I really have no idea what this was. And there wasn’t enough fun or interesting to make me care enough to figure it out. Two stars. 

Under the Rose: Fits right in with V. In fact, I read almost the whole story before realizing I was reading about characters and events that also appear in V. (Pynchon rewrote this story into a chapter of his first novel.) At times it becomes too convoluted, but it's mostly an enjoyable spy story inhabited by strange/pitiful/goofy/terrifying characters. Three stars.

The Secret Integration: Stands a bit apart from the rest of Pynchon's work; there are no tedious, paranoid ramblings or cartoonish chase scenes or fuzzy dream sequences. This is a relatively straightforward story of kids dealing with the civil rights era and their parents who are stuck in the past. It's one of the best things I've read by Pynchon, which raises the question: do I like Pynchon best when he's being the most un-Pynchonesque? Five stars.

Este es el primer libro que leo de Thomas Pynchon. Sabía más sobre su reputación de ermitaño elusivo, que jamás asiste a eventos ni deja que le tomen fotografías, que sobre su literatura. Pero no quería dejar de leerlo.
Este libro contiene cinco relatos de la juventud del autor: fueron escritos cuando tenía entre 21 y 27 años. Me sorprendieron gratamente ya que si bien no son perfectos (¿Es justo demandar perfección a un escritor de 21 años?) son maduros y algunos de hecho, excelentes. He decidido puntuar cada relato individualmente y la nota del libro será el promedio de esos puntajes. No es un sistema perfecto, pero no tengo otro que refleje mejor el libro. El primer relato, "Lluvia ligera", merece cinco estrellas en mi opinión. Es un excelente retrato de la vida en el ejército. El segundo "Tierras bajas", también, cinco estrellas. Son el tercero y el cuarto donde en mi opinión baja un poco la calidad. Les asigno respectivamente tres y dos estrellas. El cuarto, "Bajo la rosa", recibe dos estrellas porque en mi caso, encontré la trama incomprensible. Pero el libro remonta hacia el final con "La integración secreta": un grupo de chicos se reúne a escondidas para planear bromas pesadas y compartir sus críticas e impresiones sobre los adultos. El tema del racismo y la integración de Afro-americanos con los blancos está presente en todo el relato. Me parece que forma parte de las excelentes historias de niños, la realidad del mundo que los rodea, y la pérdida de la inocencia. Cinco estrellas.

Раджу спочатку почитати тексти, потім післямову, а потім авторську передмову. І взагалі все треба совати в кінець - треба дві-три післямови, най буде.

Сподобалось оповідання «Таємниче інтегрування», воно найбільш «людське». З деякими персонажами інших сподіваюсь зустрітись в наступних книгах. Ну і звичайно, маг-чарівник Макс Нестелєєв докладно розповів що це все було.

Introduction, by Thomas Pynchon

--The Small Rain
--Low-lands
--Entropy
--Under the Rose
--The Secret Integration

Publisher & Date of Publication

Diese Kurzgeschichtensammlung von Thomas Pynchon ist vielleicht nicht unbedingt essentiell für den Pynchon-Profi - mir hat sie sehr gut gefallen. Sehr interessant ist die vom Autor selbst verfasste Einführung, in der er Gedanken über sein Frühwerk äußert, die einen Einblick in den Schreibprozess am Anfang seiner Karriere geben. Pynchon lässt kaum ein gutes Haar an seinen frühen Schreibversuchen, dies aber auf sehr ironische und unterhaltsame Weise.

Auch wenn sie in den Augen des Autors nicht ganz so gut wegkommen, ich habe die Geschichten gerne gelesen. Besonders gefallen haben mir die 3 letzten Geschichten - "Entropie", "unter den Siegeln" & "die heimliche Integration". Ersteres, weil mir der Begriff der Entropie aus dem Studium (wohl?)bekannt ist, oder besser - sein sollte ;) Die zweite Geschichte nimmt einige Begebenheiten seines darauf folgenden Romans "V" vorweg, "die heimliche Integration" ist eine Reflexion über die in den 50er und 60er Jahren (und immer noch) allgegenwärtige "Rassen"frage in den USA.

Demnächst werde ich mir "V" vornehmen, was schon geraume Zeit in meinem Regal darauf wartet, gelesen zu werden

My first reaction, rereading these stories, was oh my God, accompanied by physical symptoms we shouldn't dwell upon.

This, from the opening paragraph of Thomas Pynchon's introduction to his earliest published stories, appears at first to be a self-conscious oversell of false modesty. Even after watching him pick apart the stories for the first 25 pages, one by one and with an assiduous efficiency, you still don't believe they are going to be bad. But then you read the first story, and you start to wonder if this hypothetical scenario of 1980s Pynchon meeting 1950s/60s Pynchon isn't, in fact, too generous:

...if through some as yet undeveloped technology I were to run into him today, how comfortable would I feel about lending him money, or for that matter even stepping down the street to have a beer and talk over old times?

Young Pynchon doesn't come off as a dick or even mostly unlikeable, but he doesn't come across as very interesting either. Or, perhaps most surprisingly, as very talented. And here's the silver lining: these stories firmly place the virtuosic talents Pynchon later developed into the realm of possibility for the modestly talented but ambitious would-be writer. Granted, all but one of these stories were written in college, but even so, any previously tempting apotheosis of the man will be permanently erased upon reading these. So that's the good news (I guess). But they aren't much fun to read, and I struggled to remain engaged through each one of them. I'm not going to go into detail about the problems here, mainly because Pynchon does such a damn good job of it in his introduction. It probably goes without saying, however, that any book that peaks with the introduction is in pretty serious trouble.