Pynchon as world author

[Arie Altena]

Over here in the Netherlands Thomas Pynchon is considered to be a world
author by a very small part of the literary "community". Lot49 is teached
on
the university as postmodern classic. And Slow Learner. Lot 49, Vineland
and GR are all translated. Vineland was translated shortly after it came
outin the States, after that GR was translated.

On the other hand: the GR translation got only 2 reviews when it came out
one of which was too stupid to be true. So GR ended up in the
remainder-section of the bookstores in I think less than
3 months. Nobody wanted to buy the book. There was a bit of a fuzz about
the quality of the translation but nobody ever mentioned the fact that GR
is a book as "important" as Ulysses (or whatever).

This is typically compared to the enormous amount of critical attention
generated by the translation of Perec's La Vie Mode d'Emploi a few months
ago. It seems that among critics, writers, organizers of literary
manifestation &c. Pynchon is fairly unknown. They don't like the "big
american thumb" that generates one after the other fantastic comic scene.
(Same counts for DFW's IJ I guess),

Arie Altena