Rereading

[Paul Mackin]

----------
From: 	MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu[SMTP:MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

.  A prof in grad skool (Sallie Sears; good 
critic) once pithily remarked that modern literature's main message is that there is no 
reading, only rereading. 

Don't know the lady (yikes, woman) but couldn't agree more. This will apply especially to anything Pynchon comes up with this late in the day.

I plan to respect the wishes of those who don't wish to read messages "ahead" of where they are in the new book, in the ways suggested. But really this kind of concern is totally foreign to my methods of attack. I plan to read front to back, back to front, and all ways against the middle, all at the same time. Only way I can allay my excitement and keep from . . . better forget that horrible thought.  But really folks, let me heartily recommend nonlinear reading of hard, worthwhile books like we all hope M&D will be. John's old prof is eminently right. There is no such thing as reading a masterpiece.

But of course I'll follow the rules like the good boy I am.

				P.