Eco vs Pynchon

[Craig Clark]

Andrew Dinn writes

> Well Lloyd-Webber is neither a Beethoven or a Rossini (the nearest he
> has ever got to a great tune is the Mozart manuscripts he ripped off
> his best numbers from). But to my ear Sondheim has always lacked a
> lyric - or rather that lyrical knack which makes say a Cole porter
> song glide effortlessly where Sondheim trips and slips. If you want
> someone who has both great tunes and intellectual depth I would
> suggest Schoenberg ....[snip].... Try that `Peirrot Lunaire' or the
> `Serenade for Seven Instruments and Bass Voice' or even the `Suite
> Opus 29'.

I'll take that under advisement.. Thanks for the tip! Sondheim 
doesn't really try to glide a la Porter, though: I think his songs 
are meant to trip and slip (it's one of the things I like about 
them...)
  
> I have only read Rushdie's `Midnight's Children' almost two decades
> ago the first time. I recently reread the opening 10 pages and was
> utterly wowed by the smoothness and elegance of the prose, the
> conceits which drive this opening scene, the careful delineation of
> character and context. On the strentgh of this passage he's a great
> writer. I'll have to read the whole book again when I get time and I'm
> certainly looking forward to reading his other works.

When I tried to read _The Island of the Day Before_ just after finishing
_GR_, it was exactly this lack of smooth and elegant prose that I 
missed (I think _GR_ is the finest piece of prose I've ever read). 
After abandoning the attempt, I re-read _V._ and then _The Moor's 
Last Sigh_, and lo! here was true prose artistry at work again. Yeah, 
as a writer, Rushdie is much closer to TRP (though still, perhaps 
unsurprisingly, falling far short).


  
Craig Clark

"Living inside the system is like driving across
the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
on suicide."
   - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"