Thomas Pynchon

[JOHN M. KRAFFT]

X-News: miavx1 rec.arts.books:111012
From: davide at obalona.rr.rapid.kla (David Emery)
Subject:Re: Thomas Pynchon
Date: 4 Jan 1995 19:25:29 GMT
Message-ID:<3eesn9$opb at kla.com>

In article 1 at minnie.imd.nrc.ca, parsons at minnie.imd.nrc.ca () writes:
> 	I am interested in Thomas Pynchon but haven't seen an appropriate 
> place to ask questions.
> 	Does anyone have any idea where he is, what he is doing, why he is 
> so reclusive, why the last novel was such a come down fron Gravity's Rainbow?
> 	Open a discussion here?


With the kind of interest TP arouses in people, and the way the media
intrudes on celebrities, who can blame him for hiding out? Not everybody
wants to be in the public eye, but he probably has other reasons of his
own as well. Sometimes I wonder if Zoyd and TP are one and the same. 

Despite its apparent deficiencies as a Pynchon novel, I think all this
talking down about Vineland is really a drag. By the kind of standards 
we apply to other postmodern American writers, Vineland was a really good 
book with many provocative themes and personalities, arriving at a time
when many middle-aged Americans needed to take a look backward rather 
than at their future investments. For taking on the difficult themes of 
American cultural diversity, neo-Nazism, the lost generations, and pastoral 
revival, Pynchon should be regarded as a literary hero, rather than a fading
has-been. Why should Vineland be viewed as any worse than Crying of Lot 49 
or V? I thought it was better, especially compared to V, which was a mess,
brilliant as it may have seemed at the time.
-- 
Forwarded-By:

John M. Krafft, English                 | Miami University--Hamilton
Voice:   513-863-8833, ext. 342         | 1601 Peck Boulevard
Fax:     513-863-1655                   | Hamilton, OH  45011-3399
E-mail:  jmkrafft at miavx2.ham.muohio.edu
         jmkrafft at miavx1.acs.muohio.edu