Another smalltown librarian

[Jules Siegel]

At 01:24 PM 07/3/97 -0400, Joaquin Stick <dmaus at email.unc.edu> wrote:

>Does Washington's improper use of Yiddish REALLY distract you
>from what is being said? Does McClintic Sphere's similacrum of "hepcat"
>speech distract from the message? Does the fact that the Northen Cali.
>dope dealers not speak like Northern Cali. dope dealers make that much of
>a difference from a writer whose oeuvre includes fabulism, farce,
>purposeful exaggeration and paronomasia to excess? 

It can if you have an emotional involvement with the reality that's being
caricatured. Some of us who lived through those times believed in what we
were doing. This is absurdly sentimental, of course, but I think you would
have had to have been there to appreciate this. 

I received a letter yesterday from a Pynchon reader in Spain who read my
memoir on the Internet and felt moved to tell me how much he liked it. He
also sent me Vineland in Spanish. His letter goes into some detail about
Pynchon's portraits of his time, which he takes to have been based on real
experience.

So you're saying that it's not valid for me to correct him about this? That
it's not valid for me to feel some discomfort about seeing what was once my
beloved world portrayed in what I perceive to be a coarse and unfeeling
caricature?

>By the way, Blacksburg may be a small town, but hey, so is Hannibal. Back
of the small-town librarian shit, lest ye wish them to be replaced by am
radio callers from Queens.

Having actually lived in Queens, I would much prefer to hear from its radio
callers than be insulted by the two librarians in question.

>I don't remember when being a librarian became an inherent sign of
ignorance or inexperience

It doesn't. We just have two cases, but both are so outstanding in their
lack of intelligence that I was wondering if this was a sign of some sort of
modern trend.

>(or when being published in _Esquire_ made one an authority on small towns).

I'm merely going on what I see here on pynchon-l. We have some big city
librarians who are models of courtesy and intelligence. Then we have two
smalltown librarians who take my comments in a distorted way and then react
to their internal distortions as if I actually created them. The reactions
are not very civilized, to say the least.

>Civility, gents.

Where I have I departed from civility?


--Jules Siegel Apdo 1764 Cancun QR 77501
http://www.yucatanweb.com/siegel/jsiegel.htm