A finely crafted vase

[erik burns]

>To: <jeremias at sover.net>
>From: erikburns at telepac.pt (erik burns)
>Subject: Re: A finely crafted vase
>
>>        All this talk of people not being able to finish GR and people not
>>even being able to finish a genric bestseller has brought to the forefront
>>of my mind the fact that most people don't even seem to read at all . . .
>
>
>My personal opinion is that the number of readers as a percentage of the
population as a whole is probably not declining and probably hasn't since
the invention of the book. The point is that not many people read, and never
have. Amazingly enough, they don't seem to miss it as much as readers seem
to think they ought to. But then there are certainly large numbers of people
out there who do other things and have other hobbies and are just as
bewildered by the fact that SOME people just can't seem to stop reading.
>
>As for GR, it was Gaddis who said somewhere at the end of THE RECOGNITIONS
about the organ piece that Stanley (?) was writing something like "it was
doomed to become something highly regarded and often referred-to, but rarely
heard."
>
>Gaddis was of course also prefiguring his own doom, but there you have it.
(I'm always amused by what i call Litany Crit, when a reviewer or academic
(and some of us list-members are guilty as well) remarks that X's new book
is "reminiscent of" or "echoes" and then comes the litany...Pynchon,
Barthelme, DeLillo, Barth, Heller blah blah blah. 
>
>Try this sometime: do a keyword search of Pynchon on any friendly database
and see how the vast majority of the "hits" are in such a litany, and how
few involve any detailed (or even undetailed) mention of the man, his work
or his philosophy.
>
>That's why the pynchon-l is here, for me anyway.
>
>erik
>