Re- Matt Ruff

[WillL at fieldschool.com]

Date	2/18/97
Subject	Re- Matt Ruff
>From	WillL
To	Pynchon List

Re: Matt Ruff

Some 6-7 years ago I had a friend who had just graduated from Cornell and knew
of Matt Ruff as the big undergrad writer.  She convinced me to read his first
novel, "Fool on a Hill" or "Fool's Hill" or some-such.

I haven't revisited it, so my memory is sketchy, but it was a highly inventive
"wacky campus" novel (perhaps reminiscent of BEEN DOWN SO LONG IT LOOKS LIKE UP
TO ME for being set on the same campus and being vaguely Pynchonian in an
undergrad kind of way).  I lost interest, however, when it took a Tolkien-esque
fantasy-type curve -- fairies something, I can't recall.  I finished it, and I
did think that was a hell of an effort for an undergrad.  But, RILLY, it seemed
to me a couple leagues less interesting than David Wallace's
I-wrote-it-as-an-undergrad THE BROOM OF THE SYSTEM (don't START,
Wallace-haters!) and, uh, no V.

The very fact that we've heard nothing from him since then (is that correct?)
may be the best sign of all.  Guy's been working hard apparently.

-- Will Layman