Gore's rosebud

[Paul Mackin]

I don't have Charles S's Vidal essays (see below) to compare MY cryptic rosebud quote to, but here's mine from V's "Plastic Fiction" in the July 15, 1976, issue of The New York Review. It's at the end of a paragraph characterizing and quoting widely from GR. (supposed to represent outlandish stuff I guess)

"'Submit, Gottfried. Give it all up. See where she takes you. Think of the first time I fucked you . . .  Your little rosebud bloomed.'" Hard to believe that it is close to a decade since that pretty moss tea-rose was first forced, as it were, in my greenhouse.

Wonderfully poetic final sentence, but what can we make of it?
What is Vidal saying to us?

"Plastic Fiction" considers that group of novelists V calls university
novelists because the major interest in them is academic. Includes
Barthelme, Gass, Barth, Pynchon and one or two others. The group
was chosen by Barthelme. Generally they depress the hell out of
Vidal. He does admit  that Gass writes good prose and compliments
Pynchon because he has not himself joined the academy like the rest
of his ilk. Has nothing else good to say about Pynchon with one
exception,  which is both complimentary and damning at the same time:
"It is curious to read a work that excites the imagination but disturbs the aesthetic sense." (referring to GR)

				P.

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From: 	Charles_Sligh at BAYLOR.EDU[SMTP:Charles_Sligh at BAYLOR.EDU]
Sent: 	Thursday, February 27, 1997 3:21 AM
To: 	Paul Mackin; pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: 	Gore's rosebud

Sorry about the inaccuracies in my last post.  Didn't have Vidal's collected 
essays--_United States_--with me at the time. . . .

Vidal's remark concerning "homophobia" is specific to _Lot 49_--I assume that 
Vidal has Oedipa's chat in the Bar in mind. . . .

This same essay (pages 141 & following?? book's at home) contains the cryptic 
remark on "rosebud"--Kenosha Kid meets the Senator's grandson. . . .

I can recall seeing Vidal invoked as one of TRP's harshest critics--This 
misrepresents Vidal's position--I think that he is simply hesitant 
about/exploring some points about/reflecting upon  a trend in the American Novel 
that he sees as already played out--certainly, even if I don't agree with this 
point concerning _GR_, I find Vidal's qualified praise stimulating--especially 
in light of Vidal's comment that he doubts if anyone can ever really finish 
_GR_--we have finished it more than once, but if we forget that initial feeling 
of loss and alienation, we are denying our old "albatrosses". . . .

Apologies to Vidal for the mistakes;  apologies to Enzian for the stolen 
albatrosses. . . .

It is easier if you get the texts straight as soon as they're spoken. . . .