Television Vs. Reading

[hb]

With all this talk of TV vs. Fiction, etc.
I think a super good essay, about the two, the future and the 
convergence, is David Foster Wallace's
_E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction_
from his newest collection _A supposedly fun thing..._
if ya'll haven't already read it you should check it out,
he mentions Pynchon a good bit, along with others
here mentioned, DeLillo, Gaddis, etc.

hb


t 09:54 AM 8/15/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Sojourner sez
>>I respect and admire and value people who read more than they
>>watch, who do more than they talk about, who walk more than
>>they drive, who think more than they preach, who stand more
>>than they sit, and who listen more than they hear.
>
>I'm proud to say everyone in my entire family has always read far more 
>than they watch, and watched TV once or twice a week at most, often going 
>weeks at a time without bothering.  But a number of us are seriously fond 
>of movies.
>
>I maintain movies and TV are fundamentally different, even though both 
>are "passive."  For one thing, a movie is intended to be a whole unto 
>itself, to be experienced once (and perhaps revisited, like a book), 
>while TV is meant to be a habit, with a regular schedule for seeing the 
>same thing again with minor variations.  As a result, the culture that 
>produces movies is quite different from the one that produces TV.
>
>Obviously there are exceptions, with some movie-like things appearing on 
>TV and too many movies these days looking just like TV.  But I think the 
>distinction is crucial.  That's why Pynchon is loaded with movie 
>references, but TV (as far as I can recall) is referred to only 
>sparingly, in Vineland.
>
>
>Cheers,
>David
>
>