pynchon/stoppard

Teen Age Riot alwang at eniac.seas.upenn.edu
Thu Feb 15 23:59:33 CST 1996


At 03:12 AM 2/15/96 -0500, Benjamin L Nussbaum wrote:
>	and likewise i'd argue that the reader of pynchon is perhaps 
>made to contemplate the act of the creation of the work -- the brilliance 
>of the author -- and . . . 
>				hence some of the really wonderful 
>qualities that pynchon seems to have as an individual make themselves known 
>to the reader (i.e. his intelligence his creativity his "productive 
>paranoia" {is that the phrase?}) 
>
>	and that reading one of his works is to some extent the monitoring 
>of some really wonderful act of creation -- we feel his massive intelligence 
>at work -- and 

Hmmm, I dunno.  I love Pynchon's work because it's smartly written, not
because he flaunts that smartness.  It seems to me that that kind of
watch-me-wow-you approach would flirt with a threshold where a work simply
becomes an exercise in cleverness, a carefully orchestrated "critical" gem,
without requiring the emotional investment from the artist.  I like to think
TRP has yet to cross that point.   

Al
__________________________________________
al wang
http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~alwang/home.htm
talk request: alwang at random.resnet.upenn.edu

"What's My Solution?"
"Noise Pollution!"




More information about the Pynchon-l mailing list