a little something on the Salinger Mailing List

[Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs...]

On Tue, 3 Jun 1997, D. wrote:
> London Times, May 30, 1997:  Trendy New Yorkers lap up cult writer's
> indigestible novel

Grrr.  I digested it just fine, thanx.
 
> FROM TUNKU VARADARAJAN IN NEW YORK
> 
>   IT could be described as the book everyone is wearing. Mason & Dixon,
>the almost incomprehensible new novel by Thomas Pynchon, 
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
????

Are the blokes at the London Times really so dense?  I think ol' Tunku must
have peeked inside the cover of _Gravity's Rainbow_ 15 or 20 years ago, and
run away sobbing to his (?) mum.  Ergo, a new book by TP must also be
"incomprehensible."

>   The 773-page monster is poised near the pinnacle of the bestseller
>lists, as thousands of buyers flock to bookshops in search of the
>latest intellectual bauble. 

The brisk sales are a surprise...and maybe some pseudoliterati just want
the book for its cachet.  But I reckon many will be surprised by how good,
and friendly, it is.

>   Wry observers, however, attribute Mason & Dixon's success to its 
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Read: probably a few of Tunku's expat drinking buddies.

>Melik Kaylan, a former editor at Spy magazine, describes the book as "a
>1990s version of "The Name of the Rose". 

Which means what?  I guess this is the buzzword description for cynical
pseudointellectuals to use when bashing other pseudointellectuals.

>   Another cynic remarked: "People enjoy holding up their fat new book and
>saying, 'Like my new dustjacket'?"

Yes, we do, but we've been through that.

>Cathy Melnicki, the publicist at Holt, describes Mason & Dixon as
>"a really accessible, kind of familiar, two-guys-go-into-the woods story", 

I like that!

>Other characters include Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Samuel
>Johnson, a Chinese feng shui master, a Swedish irredentist, a robot duck
>and a talking dog.

Congrats, Tunku!  You read and plagiarized that much-vaunted dustjacket!  I
wonder, though, if you even know what "irredentist" means. 

>   Pynchon is puzzling to read, 

How would you know?

Max

 M a x i m u s  D a v i d  C l a r k e | There's a lot of bullshit in
          http://www.afn.org/~traveler | rock 'n' roll, but some of 
                 "Surrealist-At-Large" | the bullshit is pretty
                      traveler at afn.org | cool.  --Bono