I want to like T. Pynchon. I really do. So I keep reading his books. Gravity's Rainbow is next. I enjoyed these stories, especially The Secret Integration, which I find to be very much not how Pynchon writes, in general. So I don't know what that says about me liking Pynchon, the fact that I like it when he writes stuff that doesn't sound like him. But come on, how awesome is it that the only picture that Google can come up with is his Navy mugshot from the 1950's? Google can see my apartment from space but they can't find a current picture of one of the greatest american writers of the 20th century. Take that Internet!

South Park придумал Пинчон в 64-м году

Pynchon's interesting introduction was really good, but the stories themselves I didn't find that great. The pick of the bunch for me were The Small Rain and A Secret Integration. Obviously he was still finding his feet, before going on to become one the postmodern greats. Hope to read Mason & Dixon as my next Pynchon some time next year.

Came mostly for the introduction ~
Don't disrespect Oedipa like that, Tom. Jesus.

The most interesting aspect of this volume of short stories is the introduction by its author Thomas Pynchon. He's very funny and there is a certain amount of charm in how he looks at his work when he was young... and before he became the icon that he is now. The only book I have read all the way through is his last novel "Inherent Vice" which I loved, because it reminded me of my youth in Southern California and all the references both culturally and actual stores in actual locations are just perfect. The other book I love is "Against the Day" and I stopped reading it half-way through. Not due to the book itself, but I think more due to life at the time. It was such a rich experience to go through that book, and it is one of the few pieces of literature, where I thought this guy is actually a genius. And yes i will finish that book!

The short stories here are very so-so, but has touches of his brilliance but not totally formed yet. I think the short story format is too restrictive for Pynchon - he needs the big scale 70mm book print to get his ideas across. And even that its difficult due to his narratives, which are deeply textured and not simple by any means. He's a writer where you really think about the research he has done and the way he conveys or writes his thoughts down on paper - it is not a book about his personal life, but the life that lives in his head.

Slow Learner is my first exposure to Pynchon. I wonder if I've made a mistake and should have begun with one of the novels, such as V, or The Crying of Lot 49 instead.

Beginning with The Small Rain, I was struck immediately by some of the odd dialogue present (Pynchon seems to have confused Canadian accents with Southern), and the sex scene towards the end was curiously written. But I liked the character of Levine and the backdrop of a town destroyed by a hurricane and how the setting challenged Levine's worldview and lifestyle.

A bit rough in patches but it served as a decent enough introduction, I suppose.

The second story I found far more palatable. It's casually poetic, witty, fluid, dryly humorous, and more than a bit weird, Low-lands has me beginning to see what people adore so much in Pynchon. What I most enjoy about postmodern writers is the skill with which they render daily ennui interesting, and Pynchon does that well in the initial half of the story.

Pynchon is the second author (the other being Haruki Murakami) I've read lately who, in his own words, admits to disliking his early writings and tears them down in a foreword as amateurish work. Far be it for me to disagree with these legendary, masterful writers, but I've quite enjoyed the early material of both of them and found it worthwhile as a lead-in to later, more polished, and higher quality work.

Interestingly, Pynchon's story reminds me of a more humorous predecessor and obvious influence of Murakami's work in the surrealistic turn Low-Lands takes in its latter half, where we find our hero literally crawling down the rabbit gypsy hole and exploring an underground network of tunnels dug into a garbage dump in which a whole society of gypsies live in order to marry a three-foot-five-inch gypsy woman named Nerissa and help raise her pet rat called Hyacinth.

I swear I'm not making this up.

Up third, the story Entropy contains a few beautiful and genuinely humorous scenes that are well written, but both are constantly tempered by Pynchon's reversion back to having his characters talk at me as if he had a bullet list next to his typewriter filled with themes and ideas he had to force into this story by any means necessary. This doesn't work for me, and if Pynchon continues like this, I don't think we'll be able to be friends.

I could chalk this one up to being very-much-not-my-thing—I usually like my short stories subtle, laconic, and peppered with a bit of ambiguity; all of which Pynchon—in his overwritten style jam-packed with random factoids and obscure references—represents the polar opposite of.

I've heard that Entropy serves as a great introduction to Pynchon's unique style, which was made famous in his later work such as Gravity's Rainbow, which I'm building up to reading by first sampling some of his short stories. This is a bit worrisome since I didn't much care for this one. But I have a feeling his style will work better with a bit more polish and the more ample legroom offered by the novel versus the short story.

Under the Rose, unfortunately, did nothing to dissuade the opinion formed by the prior story. Surely reading Raymond Carver's short fiction and John le Carré's spy fiction immediately before this didn't do any favors for Pynchon's brand of short spy fiction, which falls short of the high mark set by each. I found Under the Rose to be little more than an exercise in dry tedium. It's another story that probabyl works better in a longer format. I didn't feel I was given enough time to get to know these characters, indeed the only thing noteworthy about the characters are their silly names. The setting could have been an interesting one, but we're kept from spending much time there by a plot that trips forward monotonously, allowing for little life or character to the people in the story as it reaches a conclusion surely meant to have more impact than it does. Pynchon seemed more comfortable commenting on boring minutiae than filling out his characters. I found the entire thing a silly bore and loathed it.

I found the final story, titled The Secret Integration, to be a far more compelling one—at least initially. We're given a number of characters who instantly jump off the page at you, colored with Pynchon's trademark wackiness. The premise of a group of mischievous, memorable youths is whimsical and charming, but the serious edge Pynchon sets to it (the racial integration of a Massachusetts school during the American Civil Rights movement of the '60s) all but dissipates as Pynchon wastes his story mostly rambling on tangents about the various minutiae present in the story such as political figures of the Berkshires' past. I suspect this is just sort of Pynchon's thing: he seems to like vomiting his deep knowledge of useless, irrelevant facts onto the page right in the middle of a narrative that was really beginning to get interesting 8 pages ago when this meaningless diversion just got started. I didn't find any of these expository tangents engrossing enough to warrant their inclusion.

It's not all bad, though. This is the most well written story of the collection by far, featuring moments of virtuoso talent from Pynchon's pen. But the lack of a strict editor sees Pynchon waste this potentially entertaining story, and it fizzles out before it can make much of an impact, then ends.

Now that I've finished Slow Learner, my initial thoughts seem true: I do think I made a mistake reading this first of all Pynchon's work. It seems uneven and rambling, but I can see a glimmer of what folks must like about his work. So I'll pick another Pynchon up soon and hope that the good stuff shines through more often and more strongly, but for now I can't shake the fact that Pynchon's style just isn't for me.

Five early stories and a confessional but invaluable introductory essay by the Bard of Oyster Bay.

Book Review: Slow Learner is a necessary book for anyone who wants to know Thomas Pynchon. If you've read at least two of his novels and have any extant interest, you should read this as well. For die-hard fans the fun will be in searching out characters, events, scenes, and themes that reappeared in later works. For casual Pynchon readers seeing the author's maturation as a writer will be food for thought. Already he was uniquely incorporating science into his fiction. My suggestion is to read the Introduction to Slow Learner after reading the stories. It will make ever so much more sense and will save re-reading. This will be difficult for acolytes who tend to salivate after any scrap of information they can obtain about the maestro. In the Introduction, Pynchon not only enthusiastically deprecates his early works, but also provides useful advice for beginning writers. Through his humility, Pynchon is trying to lower expectations, to discourage reading too much into work from his 20's when he was experimenting with and exploring his craft, and perhaps to assuage his own wincing and cringing when looking back. Else why release them at all? For another bit of insight into his world fans should seek out Pynchon's Introduction to the Penguin edition of his friend Richard Fariña's only novel, Been Down So Long it Looks Like Up to Me (1966). Since there are only five stories here and this is one of the notable writers of our time, each deserves its own bit, along with year of publication.

"The Small Rain" (1959) - The simplest story here (published when Pynchon was 22), but still touching and effective. Here Pynchon aims at a big statement, but subtly and in an offhand manner befitting an enlisted man. A soldier story in the vein of Norman Mailer (The Naked and the Dead (1948)), or more distantly, Ernest Hemingway (who comes in for a mention). His first published story and the most conventional. [3★]

"Low-lands" (1960) - Pynchon writing an allegory, a fairy tale for a modern and cynical age. Written well before the similarly titled but unrelated song by Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan (and friend of Richard Fariña), "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" (1966). [3★]

"Entropy" (1960) - The convoluted plot of the story encapsulates the concept of the title, down to the stilling of a heartbeat. Rather than a story consisting of symbols, here the story is the symbol. Very Pynchonesque, and reminiscent (especially the dialog) of the aforementioned Richard Fariña novel. [4★]

"Under the Rose" (1961) - Reads like an outtake of V. (which it is, apparently - see Chapter Three), and includes characters from that novel. Rich, Baroque, complex, historical. I can't say that reading this story will provide the key to understanding any facet of that book. It actually doesn't seem like a short story at all. [3★]

"The Secret Integration" (1964) - Published a year after V. and two years before The Crying of Lot 49. Pynchon had decided that he knew how to write a short story. Along with "The Small Rain," the least Pynchon-like story in the bunch (though he can't help but flash moments of shtick), and the most conventional (was published in The Saturday Evening Post, after all). This is Pynchon making social commentary and exploring the idea that children may be wiser than adults. [4★]

Slow Learner is an excellent place to begin reading Pynchon, following along in fits and starts as he finds his way. Also recommended are the more often suggested The Crying of Lot 49 and his first novel V., for those chronologically inclined. In these early stories we discover that Pynchon had already digested several encyclopedias, lived several lifetimes, and had mastered the art of looking at everything the way no one else does. Given his cybernetic store of knowledge, he makes disturbing and surprising connections. The writing is bizarre, but beautiful. [3★]

I love Pynchon. However, I think the greatest satisfaction I got from this story collection was two-fold:

1) the introduction, by the man himself! In a way, he lost a little of the glamorous sheen of anonymity he heretofore possessed, but otherwise, it was kind of thrilling to catch a glimpse of the man behind the curtain. It hasn't ruined the magic of any of his previous works, though being able to hold tenable the hypothesis that he is just as human as any other meatbag with a keyboard is exciting. It turns out he is neither demigod nor assemblage of monkeys at typewriters, so huzzah for that.

2) the quality of the stories. They're good, but I think that's where I want to leave it. I could call them "nice" or "pleasant." They aren't suffering from a significant shortage of wit or craft, but they fall well short of the standard to which I normally hold Pynchon. They are, in short, his early works. He was once a beginner.

Ha ha ha! Pynchon was once a novice!

If my downstairs neighbors start banging on the ceiling, it will be because they were disturbed by the buoyancy of my gleeful dancing about the fact that Pynchon did not spring fully-formed from a bust of the literary canon.

The man had a learning curve. Who knew? Neato.

When I was on the cusp of adolescence, I had a smart but deviant group of friends. We weren’t the kind of kids who got straight A’s in math class or anything like that. We were smart in other ways, sneaky ways, like we knew how to pick the lock on the janitor’s closet, hoswto steal excuse notes and forge a teacher’s signature, how to throw food in the lunchroom and convince the monitors that the kids at the table behind us did it, and how to steal cookies in the cafeteria by sliding them under our hamburgers. We also learned how to dial a pay phone without getting charged, what neighbors dumped their old porn magazines in the trash so we could take them and look at them in the woods, as well as what supermarkets were best for shoplifting cigarettes. We had an extensive knowledge of obscene words in three languages , and we were often seen popping out of the forest to moon cards passing by in the moonlit night. Oh yeah, and we hated school. We conspired to blow it up because one of my friends heard from his cousin’s best friend who had a girlfriend in St. Louis or Evanston or something that told a story about a gang of students who wadded up paper towels and flushed them down the school toilets all at the same time. This cause the pipes to burst and the building blew up so the students had to stay at home for two months while construction workers repaired the whole mess.

That was our grand conspiracy. We made our plans and almost got around to doing this once, but only two of us showed up at the meeting place, the boys room at the corner of halls and 2. We decided to try anyways, but a teacher was in there and we decided to try for another time. Hey Kris, Tom, Mark, Pat, Phil, Keith, Tommy, and Mike, if you’re out there somewhere I just want to say you guys were the greatest even if our conspiracy was a total flop.

But this is why I could relate so much to the boys in “The Secret Integration” in Thomas Pynchon’s Slow Learner. This volume collects five stories and an essay, the stories all being early works written and published before any of Pynchon’s novels. This isn’t the best of Pynchon’s writings, the introductory essay was written to say as much, but fans of this author should find it interesting because it predates the themes, characters, and Pynchonisms to be found in the more developed later works.

The last and best story in this collection is “The Secret Integration” about a secret club of boys in the fictional town of Mingeville. Here we are introduced to the kind of word and name play that Pynchon is famous for as “minge” is a British obscenity roughly equivalent to how “cunt” is used in America as a reference to the vagina or as an insult. The club is led by a precociousand morose, but sometimes trouble-making, boy named Grover. Another member of the group is an African-American boy which is significant in terms of the club’s reasoning and purpose. The boys have plans to sabotage the town’s development as it sprawls like a soulless suburban cancer through the wilderness areas they love. Part of their plan is to blow up their school. As Mingeville continues to grow, the adults are faced with integration; when an African-American family moves into a track house, the white people of the town harass them and try to chase them out. This is the crux of the conflict as the boys, on the verge of adolescence, want the town integrated and the racist adults, including their parents, don’t. Here we are introduced to a major theme in Pynchon’s novels: the conflict between the sick-minded corruption of the powerful ruling classes and the innocence of the oppressed underclasses. Despite this story’s dark humor and amusing look at youth, there is a simmering undercurrent of rage at the establishment and the world of adults that stayed with me long after I finished reading. “The Secret Integration” is the most powerful story here and also the clearest and most direct expression of Pynchon’s world view that I know of so far.

The second best story is definitely “Lowlands”. Dennis Flange is having a party with his friends, some wine-drinking bohemians and mischievous sailors, the kind of people a husband’s wife hates to have around the house. When Flange’s old friend, Pig Bodine, shows up ready for a day of debauchery while on shore leave from the navy, Flange’s wife ends the party and kick everyone, husband included, out of the house. Their friend who owns a garbage dump agrees to let them stay at his shack. First they need to get mattresses to sleep on, so they descend into the garbage dump, located inside a massive pit, to find what they need. All the while, their friend tells them to be careful because his shack is being watched. After they all fall asleep, Flange learns what this is all about as he gets led away in the night by a three foot tall Romani woman who wants to marry him. She takes him through secret tunnels in the garbage pit to her bedroom, explaining that a community of Romani people live in the dump, but only come out at night. The story ends abruptly there.

It has the feel of a novel’s beginning, but unfortunately it is a novel that never got written. It reads like magical realism with realistic characters in surreal situations. It also has some important Pynchonian themes with the secret underground tunnels, conspiracies among the underprivileged, paranoia, and a highly intelligent but highly unmotivated protagonist. Flange’s friends are also a prototype of the Whole Sick Crew in his first novel V. The execution of this story is vivid and brilliant, even if it doesn’t get around to actually saying anything.

The other three stories are less spectacular. “Entropy”, the third story in Slow Learner, examines another major theme in the works of Thomas Pynchon, the balance between order and chaos that is necessary to keep a system functioning. While a party takes place in a house on Long Island, a man lies in bed with a woman while holding a dying bird against his chest. He tries to keep it alive by having the woman monitor the temperature in the room in relation to the temperature outside the window in the cold winter weather. Meanwhile, the party continues downstairs while people talk, play music, argue, play chess, and get sick until a group of sailors show up, thinking the house is a bordello. The house is a transmission ground for the exchange of energies and the party is symbolic of the ebb and flow of order and chaos. This isn’t really a story so much as it is an illustration of Pynchon’s understanding of entropy in thermodynamics and communications theory. In the introductory essay, Pynchon criticized “Entropy” as a mistaken attempt at starting with an abstract idea and dressing up characters as representations of aspects of that idea. His self-assessment is accurate.

In “The Small Rain”. Nathan “Lardass” Levine is a soldier in the army who gets sent on a mission to clean up dead bodies in a lagoon after a hurricane hit a farming island in Louisiana. Lardass is another progenitor of Pynchon’s later characters being equal parts intellectual and lazy. He wants to make a career out of being an army officer because it allows him to spend a lot of time doing nothing. As Lardass goes with his crew to clean up the dead bodies, it starts to rain. While waiting for a work assignment to be given, he drinks beer at a bar and picks up a coed from the nearby university for a one night stand. The story has no definite plot and it is more of a character study of Lardass than anything else. It is fair to call it style over substance, but is is interesting to see how the style foreshadows an element in the first section of Gravity’s Rainbow. The encroaching rain and the entry of Lardass into the territory filled with dead bodies is a lot like the encroaching winter storms and V2 rockets in Gravity’s Rainbow that bring mass death into the city of London.

The least exciting story is “Under the Rose”. Set in Egypt during World War II, a British spy named Porpentine is in pursuit of his nemesis, a German master spy named Moldweorp. He circles around Egypt in search of the other while his colleagues and the compatriots of Moldweorp interact with each other. The writing is labored and dull. It just felt like a chore to read it. This story would later be rewritten as a passage in V.

Slow Learner is far from being the best of Pynchon’s work, but it should be of interest to those who want to see the rudiments of his later genius. A lot of the prose is clumsy and obviously written by an author with little experience. It isn’t amateurish though. I’m sure that Pynchon’s college professors could see in these writings the germination of a literary giant. Aside from being early experiments with prominent themes that would reappear in his later writings, some of his most significant characters are also brought to life, most specifically Pig Bodine and Tyrone Solthrop. These characters in Slow Learner bear little resemblance to the characters they are in Pynchon’s classic works, Tyrone Slothrop is a doctor in this book, but it is interesting to see how Pynchon is beginning to play around with them, later to resurrect them in new forms for his masterpieces.

Slow Learner is not a good book for everyone and certainly not an appropriate introduction to Thomas Pynchon. It was probably published as contract filler during Pynchon’s dry spell from the early 1970s to the 1990s when he didn’t produce anything new. But that was a good time to release this volume after he had found success as a novelist with his first three early classics. Slow Learner gives readers a chance to go back and see where Thomas Pynchon was coming from before he got famous. These are his most stripped down, raw, and direct writings. It’s definitely a good read if you take it for what it is.

All of Pynchon’s usual charm without the depth that you find in his novels. This is who lit studies thinks Pynchon is—those who don’t get or care for his unparalleled grasp of history, those who think Crying is about “chaos theory” or “information theory” instead of references to very real, still extant centuries old communications networks will find these stories indistinguishable in kind from his novels.

I was bracing myself for these to be crap, but they're not really. Sure, they don't really go anywhere much, especially the early few, and while they're certainly nowhere near the greatness of the novels they're still pretty well written. Better than anything I could muster, at least. Oh, and that introduction is very charming. This is certainly worth a read if you're a Pynchon fan.

idk if this was a good place to start for a pynchon beginner, but better to start somewhere than never at all. i managed to finish all of this without banging my head into a wall or crying a lot, unlike crying lot (excuse the pun, i couldn’t help myself), so that’s a definite plus. and while pynchon himself admits in his prologue that these stories are not his best, i found them to be enjoyable at best, overlong at worst. there is a lack of flair that makes reading his later portfolio so masochistically fun, but the fiction here is far from bad. his prologue, however, is really where this collection stands out. pynchon addresses a lot of problems with how he wrote these stories, why he feels they are not his best work, various qualms he has with each piece, etc. he also offers a bit of advice in regards to writing, which i found to be helpful as both a writer and a reader of him. definitely going to give gravity’s rainbow and crying lot another try soon