required reading

[ckaratnytsky at nypl.org]

     Apropos of the recent NY Magazine article and the possible barrage of 
     TRP-related publicity and consequent late-night pig-wrestling on 
     Letterman associated with the pub of M&D (hello, Murthy!), my fellow 
     listees may be interested to read Amy Tan's article in the December 
     Harper's, reprinted from the fall Threepenny Review.
     
     The article, entitled "Required Reading and Other Dangerous Subjects" 
     speaks to the issues authors (you know, as people) face when they 
     become "canonized" or otherwise made grist for the, dare I say, grad 
     student thesis, literary fan and, even, gah, listserv mill.  Tan 
     writes amusingly about reading a master's thesis, a miracle of 
     "literary sleuthing" which cites the symbolic use of the number four 
     in The Joy Luck Club and goes on to "reveal a mystical and rather 
     Byzantine puzzle, which, once explained, proved to be completely 
     brilliant and precisely logical.  [The student] wrote me a letter and 
     asked if her analysis had been correct.  How I long to say 
     'absolutely.'  The truth is, if there are symbols in my work they 
     exist largely by accident or through someone else's interpretive 
     design....  To plant symbols like that, you need a plan, good 
     organizational skills, and a precise understanding of the story you 
     are about to write.  Sadly, I lack those traits."
     
     With regard to our friend TRP, I would say, natch, that he *doesn't* 
     lack those traits, that he *does* have a plan, good organizational 
     skills, etc. etc.  But I would venture to guess that serendipity, 
     synchronicity and chance all play larger roles in his writings than 
     we, the adoring public, think they do.  Don't they, eh, Mr. P., sir?  
     I think the marvelous confluence between the word and the plan and the 
     angel of randomness is the big bang that creates works of genius.  
     (Remember the famous story about Beckett transcribing a door slam into 
     the mss. of Finnegan's Wake, was it, for our boy James?  Check me on 
     this, Joyce-l lurkers.)  
     
     I think that TRP must be gettin' quite a chuckle now and then from 
     stuff like our microscopic meanderings through the GRGR.      
     
     Well, either that, or one royal headache.

     Chris