Rushdie on Eco and Pynchon

[Jeff Rice]

I think your perceptions on Rushdie are off the mark. He's a genius at language and dialogue. Both Midnight's Children and Satanic Verses are great examples of the man's prose capabilities, unseen among many of today's writers.
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From: 	Bruce Appelbaum[SMTP:Bruce_Appelbaum at chemsystems.com]
Sent: 	Tuesday, October 22, 1996 10:55 AM
To: 	pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: 	Re: Rushdie on Eco and Pynchon




     It's an interesting thing about Rushdie that after Midnight's Children 
     and Shame (which I read while living in Pakistan while Zia was still 
     President -- the book was banned in that country), his books really 
     aren't readable or even very good.  Satanic Verses in itself was 
     pretty poor -- I think it got its "15 minutes" more because of the 
     Iranian fatwa than anything else.  The Moor's Last Sigh is guilty of 
     all the same things for which he castigates Eco.
     
     His critical writings tend to have a certain superior tone, which he 
     really has no right to use.
     
     
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Rushdie on Eco and Pynchon
Author:  "Paul Kedrosky" <pkedrosk at sms.ivey.uwo.ca> at Internet 
Date:    10/22/96 10:03 AM
     
     
I'm no Eco-file, and I think Salman Rushdie did the best job I've seen of 
deflating the big man's babbling in his 1989 NYT review of "Foucault's 
Pendulum." 
     
First, from the review, here's Rushdie on Pynchon:
     
"The only writer who ever managed to transmute the base metal of the 
illuminatus-novel into art was Thomas Pynchon ... What gave Pynchon the edge 
over all the other cabalistic babblers was that he was funny, he could create 
vivid, belching, hilariously unstrung characters, and that his awarenesss of 
genuinely suppressed histories ... always informed his treatment of even the 
most lunatic fictional conspiracies."
     
Now some random comments on Eco from the same review:
     
"It's just possible that inside this whale, there's an enjoyable smaller fish 
trying to get out ... there are moments when the ponderous narrative sparks 
into life. But the spark is instantly snuffed out by page after page of Higher 
Bullshit."
     
He concludes:
     
"Unfortunately, [the book] is so turgid that it's impossible care about 
reaching [the end]. This is Spielbergery without the action or bullwhips, and 
if, as Anthony Burgess threatens on the jacket, 'this is the way the the 
European novel is going,' we should all catch a bus in the opposite direction 
as soon as possible." 
     
Paul
pkedrosk at sms.ivey.uwo.ca