SLOW LEARNER

[Murthy Yenamandra]

dbh at mail.idt.net writes:
> Pynchon does things in CL49 which make him one of the major creators of
> literature. [...]

You've got to be kidding! TRP would at best get a minor footnote in 20th
century lit on the strength of CL49. His major criticism of the book,
(and I agree with him), is that it tries to fling about ideas and themes
while ignoring characterization (of course, it's just the kind of a
textbook novel they'd assign you in school to kill your interest in a
writer). I, for one, am glad that he has learned beyond CL49. _Vineland_
is a far better example of a sensibility that's different from his
earlier work, but still interesting.

> [...] He is a
> great novelist because he can take whatever views and put them into a
> literary form which is their intricate but consistent embodiment.

I kind of agree with this, but don't overestimate literary form - a
writer with a great "voice" who has nothing much to say is sometimes
more unbearable than one who has great ideas, but can't write. Pynchon
is a great novelist because he has much to say and he says it better
than almost anyone else.

IMHO and YMMV.

Murthy

-- 
Murthy Yenamandra, Dept of CompSci, U of Minnesota. mailto:yenamand at cs.umn.edu
    "There is a crack in everything
     That's how the light gets in" - Leonard Cohen