SLOW LEARNER

[j minnich]

Paul writes:
>
>Could it be that P is as proud as we seem to be enthralled with the dashed
>off Lot49?
>
>Doesn't want to be the one to praise it though.
>


I haven't said anything lately, so maybe now's my chance.  I have read Lot
49 maybe ten times.  Obviously, I like it.  But I can see why TRP might
consider it an embarrassment.  It smacks so loudly of the sixties, for one
thing.  Some of the puns, etc. are really juvenile:  "Manny Depresso," &
"KCUF," are just two of the worst.   But the things I like -- wow!  The
ultimate ambiguity regarding a "plot," ala Hawthorne; the pseudo histories
like that of the Scurvehamites who fell in love with this gaudy world which
they sought to condemn; the movie within a novel; the play within a novel;
the actor who became a lawyer and vice-versa (especially after Reagan); the
deaf people dancing to unheard music at the Claremont(?) Hotel; the
inamorati anonymous; Arnold Snarb.  The list could go on.  I've often
marvelled over how he got so much into so few pages.  The testimonial ends
here.           -j. minnich