No fawning P-cultie, I

[Meg Larson]

Point taken, and it was an excellent defense of your views.  You mentioned
previously that in _GR_, Pynchon seems to lose interest in his characters,
which may be reflected in the fact that in the novel, his characters
(Slothrop most notably) lose interest in their quests (for lack of a better
word).  I thank you for your thoughful response; it has given me something
else to gnaw over . . .
:-)

"Too many textbooks and discussions leave students free to make up their
minds about things"
                                  --- Mel Gabler, Texas textbook critic 

Meg Larson
Saginaw Valley State University
mgl at tardis.svsu.edu              

----------
> From: doktor at primenet.com
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: No fawning P-cultie, I
> Date: Wednesday, March 05, 1997 9:44 AM
> 
> Meg Larson and Steven Maas's thoughtful ripostes notwithstanding, I write
> to defend my view about the superiority of V. and CoL40 to GR.
> 
> One of the chief jobs of a novel, or any work of art for that matter, is
to
> render the complexities of the human experience in compact form. 
Novelists
> do this by telling stories, and if they do their jobs well, they tell us
> much more than the information their tales present.
> 
> The difference between reading, say, an encyclopedia and a novel is that
> the latter, through the device of the story, resonates with us, creates
> those "a-AH!" moments where our understanding surpasses our
comprehension,
> and expresses truths that it would take millions of non-fiction words to
> present.  Followers of Jung (or Joseph Campbell, for that matter) might
> argue that we, as a species, are wired to react in these ways to stories.
> 
> I do not dispute that there are several stories going on in GR, and
perhaps
> I envy Steve Robinson because those stories "pulled [him] through the
> novel."  But as Pynch himself might put it, the signal-to-noise ratio is
> just too high.  Perhaps there are just too many plots going on.  With
> respect to GR, I think that critic quoted by Shirley Limm is onto
> something.  As paraphrased by Ms. Limm,
> 
>         Pynchon doesn't have real plots. He fails to follow through on
issues
>         and sub-plots he raises because he looses interest. Essentially,
GR is a
>         prose poem and the reader shouldn't be disappointed that the plot
is
>         incoherent.
> 
> I also don't dispute that GR yeilds more and more at each re-reading, as
> does all good literature.  After all, a good novelist spends months or
> years writing a book; it's unreasonable to expect readers to "get"
> everything on their first pass.  But I don't think it's necessarily a
> measure of greatness that some of the essentials in a book are so tightly
> coded that it takes numerous re-reads to access them.  I am reminded of
the
> Monty Python sketch where an actor is discussing Skakespearean roles in
> terms of the number of words each character speaks.  To paraphrase, he
goes
> on to say,
> 
>         But I don't want to give you the impression that it's just the
number
>         of words that matters.  As my old college professor used to say,
the
>         words are all there, really, you just have to get them in the
right
>         order.
> 
> One could re-read an encyclopedia or a dictionary and get more out of it
> each time, too.  What we expect from a novelist, however, is a more
artful
> organization of ideas than we find in nonfiction.
> 
> I am not put off by the non-linearity of the plot in GR. I am a champion
of
> V., whose plot is perhaps even more anachronistic than GR's.  I derive
some
> pleasure from re-reading GR, but it is the kind of cerebral pleasure akin
> to reading a well-written textbook.  But every Christmas Eve for the past
> ten years, I begin re-reading V., stretching the book out through that
> magical week between Christmas the New Year's when reality feels
suspended.
> The pleasure I take then is like the feeling Marlow's listeners must have
> felt as they sat on that ketch sailing up the Thames while the
intertwining
> tales of Marlow and Kurtz are told.  There are two stories in V. which
> intertwine at the end, and part of the power of the book is its economy
of
> plots.  GR suffers by comparison from too many plots; its strength is
> dissipated.
> 
> Col49 is even more economical in its narrative.  Someone (on this list,
> perhaps?  forgive the mushy memory) described the book as one in which
> every word is important.  The suggestions that it be read as a kind of
road
> map to Pynchon's thought is intriguing.  Still, its "map-ness" doesn't
> detract from its being, at its heart, a good mystery story.  The mystery
> story is a form that has captivated humankind since the ancient Greeks.
> That Pynchon can express so many fascinating ideas about communications
> theory, the nature of undergrounds, the law, Jaccobean drama, paranoia,
the
> preterite and god-and-TRP-knows-what-all while at the same time spinning
a
> compelling story is a compelling testament to his prowess as a novelist.
> GR has lots of ideas too, but since they are not hung on a framework as
> solid as the earlier novels, the book is ultimately the weaker.
> 
> GR is a book famous for not being read.  Cf. Fran Liebowitz and Meg
Larson.
> There's a reason for that.
> 
> --Jimmy
> 
> http://www.angelfire.com/oh/Insouciance/index.html
> 
>