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On 9/24/2011 6:20 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
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On 23.09.2011 18:07, Paul Mackin wrote:<br>
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Not to necessarily claim precedence but I have long held that
Bourdieu is the guy to go to when it comes to understanding why
so few read Pynchon.<br>
<br>
No matter how assiduously one reads the long, erudite,
many-times-obscure, works, it does not seem to increase one's
status in society one iota.<br>
<br>
:-)<br>
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<br>
Over here this was different. During the 1980s and early 1990s
reading Pynchon was an indicator of hipness. Among readers under
the age of 50 it did increase your status. And if you were known
as a Pynchon freak, people joined you at parties, asking "Can you
please tell me something about that crazy American writer?" This
effect slowly faded away during the 1990s when authors like
Vollmann and Wallace appeared on the scene. At the turn of the
century you could rather score with "The Royal Family" or
"Infinite Jest". Which perhaps has also to do with the fact that
"Mason & Dixon" is not exactly "Gravity's Rainbow". And then
"The Corrections" got published, leading to the effect that -
attractive to many people - literary culture is little more than
easy reading now. So malignD's dictum "You cannot criticize Joyce
and claim literary intelligence at the same time" is simply not
understood anymore. <br>
<br>
<br>
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Yes, I'm sure my "experience" had to do with my demographic. By the
time GR came out I was already well into middle age.<br>
<br>
In the sixties Pynchon had not really registered very much with the
youth movement. At least i don't remember it being so, I was even
already too old for that--over thirty.<br>
<br>
Alas.<br>
<br>
P<br>
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