A sandwich ain't nothing but food

[Paul J. Mackin]

On Tue, 17 Oct 1995, Hartwin Alfred Gebhardt wrote:

> Paul writes:
>  
> > > According to John Burgess:
> > 
> > > Besides, if one does not see TRP as "heroic" in some form, then however 
> > > does one find him/herself in this mailing list?
> > 
> > 	Sounds kind of exclusivist to me.
> > 
> > 			Paul
> 
> Of course it is. So what? 'Exclusivism' is not a dirty word. Someone 
> started this list, calling it Pynchon-l; this already broadly defines 
> the area of interest for all those who have subscribed, and excludes 
> other authors unless they are somehow related to Our Hero. (VIVA 
> PYNCHON VIVA!) 
> 
> On a slightly more serious level: the question of whether one can or 
> should distinguish between 'good' writing and 'bad' writing, or between 
> 'literature' and 'pulp', always tends to come up. Personally, and 
> while not prescribing to any abolute notions of quality or the fixed
> meaning of adjectives, I certainly believe that Thomas Pynchon is 
> a better writer than Stephen King or Gore Vidal, that most romance 
> and fantasy novels 'suck', that by far the greater majority of all 
> publications are an absolute waste of 'innocent' trees, and that 
> there are entirely too many Major Marvy's in this world. In this 
> regard I am quite cheerfully exclusivist and even <gasp> elitist.
> 
> What do others think about this?
> 
> h(aughty)g(uy)
> hag at iafrica.com
> 
hg:
	In my opinion "absolute majority" is not being exclusivist
enough. Make it 95 percent. However, it's not that Vidal is a bad
writer, is it? He just can't think up good fiction. The essays IMHO
are charming.

	I've got another question. What percentage of books published
(printed) ever get read? Say, of those on the NY Times bestseller list? 
Every once in a while I buy one and can never hardly get through
a few chapters. In this respect, heavily-marketed books may be
like exercise machines. This is no consolation to the trees, of course.

				Paul