Intellect vs Emotion

[Doug Millison]

Pynchon avoids sentimentality, but achieves significant emotional effects
all the same. Mason's longing after his dead wife feels real (Pynchon's
especially good at longing, yearning), for example, and in countless small
moments he evokes deep emotional insight into his characters. I'll admit to
shedding a tear or two at the most egregiously saccharine Reader's Digest
or Kodak moments in all media, but I respect Pynchon's restraint and his
artistic choice not to indulge in cheap sentimentality. Rarely does life
give us the luxury of the straightforward emotional arc and closure we so
often get in popular songs and movies -- real life emotion comes in fits
and starts, small epiphanies, the occasional gut-wrenching whack, and lots
of unrequited longing.

My two cents,
Doug



At 5:36 PM 6/13/97, Henry Musikar wrote:
>Is it just me, or does the intellectual content of a great work
>diminish its emotional impact for you? Sure there's a tug here and
>there, and a cumulative emotional effect in, for example, Pynchon's
>work, but never nearly as much (for me) as even a bad movie or song
>with simple loss (and perhaps resolution), what my ancestors would
>(sometimes sarcastically) call "a schtick leiben" or something like
>that, meaning "a slice of life."
>
>AsB4,
>Henry Musikar
>
>Keep cool, but care. -- TRP
>Moderation in moderation. -- Husky Mariner
>DON'T PANIC! -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
>What, me worry? -- A. E. Newman

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D O U G  M I L L I S O N<<<<<>>>>>millison at online-journalist.com
     Today in history (13 June 97 wire service report):
1633: The charter for Maryland was given to Lord Cecil Baltimore.
1944: Nazi Germany began flying-bomb attacks on Britain.
     From today's wire service reports:
     --Star Trek fans are like drug addicts who suffer withdrawal symptoms
if deprived of their favorite television show, a British study has shown.
One woman "Trekkie" spent her whole holiday worrying that her video
recorder had not been set properly at home to catch the latest installment.
Another spent $10,000 on Star Trek merchandise every year. After studying
fans of the science fiction cult show for four years, psychologist Sandy
Wolfson said, "My research found that about five to 10 percent of fans met
the psychological criteria of addiction."
     --Believing the modern world is spinning dangerously out of balance,
native Indian leaders from around the Western Hemisphere are preparing to
break 500 years of virtual silence in a bid to rescue Mother Earth. A
rainbow confederation of more than 400 elders and shamen will hold council
in a traditional ceremonial long-house or "maloca" in a remote village deep
in the Colombian Amazon region for 10 days starting June 19. "Life is out
of balance because man became disconnected from the basic essence of the
cosmos," event organizer Francisco Quiroga said.