the works

[Brian D. McCary]

I wrote: 
> 
> >"I love CL, but I suspect
> >that if GR had never been written, CL would have about the same readership
> >as, say, _The Floating Opera_.  After all, _Been Down So Long...._ is
> >about as good, (though much less experimental) and I havn't seen it 
> >anywhere but in the used bookstores for a long time.  
> 
John Mascaro replied,

> I think CL49 is too often undervalued.  IMHO, it's world's beyond BEEN DOWN 
> SO LONG, despite the possibility that Farina's writing did open up some 
> channels for TRP to pick up on.  There is a profound exploration of language 
> in CL49, an exploration which is simultaneously political, philosophical and 
> aesthetic.  There's a theory of metaphor at work, and some treading on the 
> whole question of what it means to create a fictional world.  I dunno why it 
> seems lame to so many people.  What bugs me is the way people tend 
> to--dismiss--their least favorite TRP book.  Please don't get me wrong.  This 
> is no hagiographist at work here; I don't respond equally well to everything 
> the old boy has writ, but I do hold that each of the novels is a masterpiece, 
> and amazing. 

which is a great description of what I like in CL.  As I said, I like 
CL (and have read it more times than VL, and possibly more than V) But I 
think that there are good arguments for claiming that it is GR which 
established Pynchon as a benchmark for late twentieth century literature.

Joyce afficianados may well love Dubliners and Portrait, but how many people
think that Portrait would be taught in High School English class if Joyce
had died in a motorcycle accident (or it's moral equivalent) before he
wrote Ulysses and Finigans Wake?  I expect CL to show up in courses for a
long time, but I think that if Pynchon had written only V and CL, this 
list would not exist.  

Which is what makes GR a "big" book to me; not the size, but the impact
on humanity.  This is an aspect of it which is independant of its literary
quality.  The fact that CL _can_ be undervalued is its greatest weakness. 
GR inspires passions (although frequently negative) even in alot of people
who barely read any of it; it refuses to be ignored.