pynchon-l-digest V1 #210

[Roman Kiess]

Hello Diana!

You wrote:
Also, as an
academic (I guess I'll just admit that now), I am uncertain of the degree 
to which the making the connection between human banalities (in this case 
Pynchon's) and literary creations (his amazing oeuvre) can illuminate or 
even correspond.  And this from someone who has read People and the 
Enquirer. Not that I attended the funeral of the death of the author 
despite Roland Barthes' invitation, but I have definitely enjoyed TRP's 
mysterious persona precisely because it permits the literature to speak 
for itself.

Your coming out as "academic" is funny, even if you do this ironically. 
It's ok to be proud of it, for I hadn't guts enough to study something I 
couldn't earn my living of. I am a "semi-academic" for in Germany there 
are lower grade universities, so called Fachhochschulen (FH), and I 
specialized on administration. I think there are a lot of academics, like 
some engineers that know less about belletristic literature than other 
faithful readers. Enough of this.

As you cite "The death of the author" I'm positive there has been an 
earlier discussion here (I don't know) about how much the unknown private 
life of TRP would influence the reception of his oeuvre. It'll surely 
lose some of it's magic, if we know more about the writing background. 
But as you write that literature speaks for itself I disagree. Books 
aren't written in a cleanroom lab, by a mastermind that afterwards ceases 
to exist. Even a dead author's biography influences the reception of his 
books. Besides, especially a book like GR could carry the problem of mis- 
or overinterpretation in it.
Of course everybody has his own truths; perhaps you know Akiro Kurosawa's 
"Rashomon", there is a US remake with Marlon Brando but I don't remember 
the title. The story is  about the rape of a woman, and the situation is 
told by four eyewitnesses with four extremely different outcomings.

And even TRP isn't the prototype of a dead author, for he writes another 
book (see Mason & Dixon). And why there is his name on the cover of GR, 
if he would let the literature speak for itself and this alone?

Sorry, I like to make sharp remarks, sometimes even as the devil's 
advocate ("advocatus diavoli") just to inspire reactions.

Tschuessle (bye)
Roman