pynchon-bashing columnist

[Doug Millison]

I'll add this to the growing list of columnists/reviewers/etc. who throw
Pynchon's name into otherwise lusterless articles about artists more or
less unrelated to Pynchon -- I guess it's a hip reference to make, whether
or not you know or appreciate anything about Pynchon as an artist.

The July Express Books literary supplement of the Express, an  East Bay (on
the east side of the San Francisco Bay, that is) weekly free newspaper,
includes a regular column about authors and the book business, called
"Publisher's Row", written this month by Laura Hagar.

At the end of a rather lurid discussion of books about Timothy Leary and
Leary's death, Hagar lurches into a discussion of Douglas Rushkoff
(disclaimer - he's a friend of mine; among other things, Rushkoff was also,
briefly, executor of Leary's literary estate), author of "Cyberia", "Media
Virus" and "Playing the Future", three non-fiction books about computer
culture in the youth/psychedelic/pagan revival vein, and of the newly
published novel, "Ecstasy Club" which Hagar describes as "a GenX
page-turner set in an abandoned piano factory in West Oakland....the
adventures of a brand of self-medicating, highly philosophical squatters
who hope to take mankind to the next phase of evolution by setting up a
cyber-wired rave club where goths, gays, rave kids, and other seekers of
utopia run amok in entertaining ways." The blub on the back of the book,
according to Hagar, describes "Ecstasy Club" as "Thomas Pynchon meets the
X-Files". Revealing her true colors, Hagar concludes her riff by saying,
"Rushkoff, thank heavens, is a more fun and accessible writer than Pynchon
ever dreamed of being."

Those are Hagar's words -- knowing Rushkoff, I don't believe he would put
himself in the same literary ballpark with Pynchon; Rushkoff is following
his own path.

I suspect, but don't know, that Hagar may also be behind the description of
Mason & Dixon (number 3 on the Express East Bay best-seller list) in the
same issue:  "Diehards might actually enjoy this vast 'reimagined 18th
century novel' in which a great Plethora of Nouns is upper-cas'd."

Just thought you'd like to know,
Doug


D O U G  M I L L I S O N ||||||||||||| millison at online-journalist.com