literary exhaustion

[David Andignac]

Fellow list members:

During a recent trip to the local bookstore, I paged through a collection of 
essays on 20th century literature. Within the section on postmodernism, the 
author passed over the works of Pynchon and Barth in particular as exercises 
in "literary exhaustion" and then went on to focus on the importance of the 
writings of more "conventional" authors such as Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller.

I have two questions:
I am not familiar with this term "literary exhaustion".  Is this the 
critical blow-off that I assume it is and how do fans respond to this kind 
of blank categorization.

Second:
How do you see Pynchon being accepted by the next generation? Is his place 
in literary history secure despite the fact that his work  is often 
disregarded by more mainstream critics? Will we ever see V. or Lot 49 on 
required high school reading lists?

I am a self proclaimed newbie and realize that these topics have probably 
been covered before.
If anyone recalls a time period when they may have been discussed, let me 
know. I would be happy to go through the mailing list archives, but not all 
7,000 pages of them.

Thanks,
David