(Fwd) Re: UMd Pynchon/DeLillo Class

[Morgan N. Sandquist]

>> What I wanted to mention, though, was that I read GR right after  
>> graduating from college and so, without other assignments pressing heavy
on  
>> my mind, was able to take a leisurely five months to read it. I don't  
>> think I could have done it any other way. I was able to savor it, put it
 
>> down and think about it, look up reference materials. In other words, I 

>> think anyone who assigns the entire GR isn't doing it justice if they  
>> just dedicate a week or three (or four....) and then move on. The
beloved  
>> monster is big enough to take up an entire class by itself. At least the
 
>> prof in the PYNCHON/DELILLO class is giving everyone a taste of it.  
> 
> 
>Which brings up the question: has anyone here ever taken (or know 
>of someone who's taken) a course in which the entire GR was 
>assigned? 
> 
>I took a course several years ago in which we read ALL of Proust's 
>Remembrance of Things Past, a novel longer than GR if not denser. 
>We averaged about 400 pages per week. Enjoyed the book, by the way, 
>but don't think I'll be signing on to the Proust list anytime  
>soon. 
> 
>KJ 
> 
I took a freshman honors class in American Thought and Language at Michigan
State in 1986 that was dedicated entirely to GR.  Even though it was an
honors class, we were all eighteen, and I think the whole thing was above
us.  As a freshman (and a finance major), I really hadn't encountered much
of the material that one needs to understand before reading GR.  Still, the
class was extremely rewarding, and it got me started on the Pynchon oeuvre.
 One of the final projects for the class was to write a story in the manner
of Pynchon, an my story was judged best by the jury of my classmates.  My
reward for this was a copy of V.  I didn't read it right away, but I read
it later, when I had time.  I also went back to GR several times, when I
could read it with out the pressure of its being assigned. 
 
One aside:  Although one can learn an awful lot from a class on GR, it
proves virtually impossible for a professor to assess students'
understanding of the book, especially in the case of freshmen whose
understanding is likely to be limited anyway.  I suppose this would Pynchon
happy. 
 
Morgan