Erickson blurb--and other people who sneak stuff from other realities

[Paul L. Maliszewski]

Hello,
	Tim May wrote in with the text of a blurb for Erickson:

	That would be Steve Erickson, who also wrote "Rubicon Beach" and 
	"Days Between Stations."  Pynchon's blurb on my copy of "Rubicon
	Beach" reads:  "Steve Erickson has that rare and luminous gift for 
	reporting back from the nocturnal side of reality, along with an 
	engagingly romantic attitude and the fierce imaginative energy of 
	a born storyteller." (1986)

This sounded suspiciously like something Pynchon wrote in the introduction
to the posthumous collection of Barthelme's stuff, The Teachings of Donald
B.  Again--and I hope I'm not annoying anyone--I don't have the book in
front of me--but Pynchon talks about how he felt that Barthelme was able
to sneak stuff from his dreams past customs agents to the other side, a
challenge, Pynchon indicated, few writers were up to. 
        Can someone else verify the similar rhetorics:  the sneaking, the 
reporting back; the sense of other realities and dreams.
	
	This similarity brings me to something that Edward Heinemann 
wrote earlier today:

	I've been fascinated for quite a while between the apparent
	contrast in tone and artistic priorities between "high" Pynchon (V,
	Lot 49, GR) and his dust-jacket cottage-industry. Pynchon 
	straightforwardly praises morality, beauty, and romanticism, all
 	artistic values his novels elaborately undercut and complicate (while
 	deploying them marvelously at the same time, of course). I, for one,
 	tend to think that these blurbs, along with recent shorter writings
 	like "Nearer My Couch to Thee" and "Is it OK to Be a Luddite?",
	indicate that the simpler (that's a relative word) style and moral
 	structure of "Vineland" reflect a genuine sea-change in Pynchon's 
	artistic values and practice.	

I guess I don't see the difference between high Pynchon and low Pynchon, 
or maybe I just don't divide his work that way.  Or if I do I don't hold 
the Pynchon of the Book Blurbs to be the same as the Pynchon of a Novel's 
Pages.
	If the writer people are referring to as low Pynchon happens 
to espouse concepts of the romantic artist and notions of beauty, why is it 
necessary that those values be consistent with the values of the novels--and, 
by extension, the high Pynchon?
	It may be obvious, but I think someone has to say it:  Blurbs 
are not novels and novels are not blurbs.  Our expectations when we read 
a blurb are _not_ the same as when we read the novel.  Perhaps a dramatic 
example is in order:  "A screaming comes across the sky." is a whole 
different bird than Steve Erickson has that adjective and adjective noun 
for gerunding back from the adjective description description realities.
	The only reason we 
as a list have ourselves in this bind (and this conversation) is because 
we're together in the peculiar position of having chosen an artist whose 
texts are quite limited.  So it's quite natural for us to fall upon (and 
perhaps devour) every word--and weigh every word as if they are equal.  
The tendency may be quite natural, but I think it should be resisted.
	They aren't equal.  They can't be.  Pynchon cannot write them
for the same reason.  He blurbs for people he admires--friends possibly, 
or maybe just those he's read and enjoyed.  If that's the ground situation
how can Thomas Pynchon do other than praise?  And praise in that 
effusive and classically romantic language we all know and recognize?
	So I don't understand how blurbs can represent a sea change in 
artistic values.  I can appreciate the need to identify sea changes, and 
I can see how in Pynchon's case identifying them becomes all the dicier 
because there are few texts to find change between, but blurbs are not 
cut from the same cloth.  If I knew anything about neurosciene I'd say 
they come from a whole other side of brain than the novel.  If our 
expectations aren't the same for the blurb and the novel, why do we 
expect Pynchon (or any artist) to have a monolithic set of goals, to 
be enacted and followed and enacted again and followed again, quite 
robotically, irrespective of what he's doing?  And what he's doing it for?
	Now I'm not suggesting that blurbs are just junk and should be 
ignored.  I do want to suggest though that blurb Pynchon is probably 
Pynchon on auto-pilot, or Pynchon watching some marathon weekend of 
re-runs on cable.  And as entertained as I was by Pychon's jaunty, 
free-wheeling intro to the Don B. book, I think that too is Pynchon on 
auto-pilot--and it was the Erickson blurb coming across my desk this 
evening that brough this home.

	Let me wind this up somehow.
	I just think we should recognize when we're dealing with gold 
and when we're dealing with dross.  Clearly there's artistic achievement 
of some kind to be had in both blurbs and novels.  I happen to agree with 
Arturo Gonzalez, for 
example, that the Love in the Time of Cholera blurb is superbly written.  
I would be a bit of nit-pick, however, and point out that this blurb was 
originally part of the longer review that appeared in the NYTBR, and as 
such is more a representative of The Book Review than The Blurb [possible 
movie title?].  Likewise, it demonstrates a third and different set of 
artistic values, purposes, and 
modes--and, I fear, an equally different direction for this conversation 
to mosey.  In any case the Garcia-Marquez blurb 
shows remarkable verve and, even after a number of readings, sounds as 
original as it did on the very first.  It should be read every year.  It 
should be shared with children of a certain age.  It 
will, I predict, take its place among the brightest of American blurbs.

	There, I've gone and done it.  I've blurbed a blurb--if only to 
demonstrate how I think the language of praise is inescapably of a certain 
stripe and drawn from a certain limited vocabulary.
_________________________________________________________________________
Paul Maliszewski