No fawning P-cultie, I

[Meg Larson]

Sorry I didn't snip any of this.

> Steven Maas, John M. and Henry M. have all written concerning my
assessment
> of GR as a lesser novel than V. or CoL49.
> 
> I'm very tempted to adopt Henry M.'s intriguing position.  He writes:
> 
>         Perhaps GR is not a great novel because it isn't a novel. Are all
long
>         works of fiction novels? How important are the elements that we
have
>         all been taught are necessary or required in a novel?
> 
>         * * *
> 
>         IMHO, GR is perhaps a lesser novel but a greater work of art than
>         COL49.

I was under the impression that _GR_ is more "anti-novel" than novel, just
as Slothrop is more "anti-hero" than hero.  Perhaps a mere semantic
difference, perhaps not.
 
> This is a personally tempting position because it would permit me to
> express my admiration for Pynchon's art in GR without compelling me to
> admit that it is a great novel.  But the more I think about this, the
more
> I'm convinced that Henry has proposed a distinction without a difference.
> Call GR a prose poem, a work or art, a masterpiece or what you will:
surely
> there are _some_ criteria against which we may judge it.  As to CoL49,
> however, I think Henry is right-on when he says:
> 
>         IMHO COL49 is a wonderful, modern chamber piece. The formal,
>         trad structure (plot and character development, for example) that
we
>         expect is there in spite of modern dissonant themes.
> 
> Henry's wonderful chamber piece metaphor helps me respond to John M. when
> he writes:
> 
>         On what ground sdoes the lack of *economy* in GR imply a lack of
>        quality?  Where does economy become an important variable?
> 
> You don't make a chamber piece into a symphony just by adding more notes.
> Had we but world enough and time, excessive verbosity were no crime, but
> since time for all of us is limited in one way or the other, part of the
> writer's job is to present his stories, themes, ideas and truths in a
> reasonably compact form.  Brevity is the soul of more than just wit.
>
While this is the writer's "job", was this Pynchon's intention--to use a
"reasonably compact form?"  I think not, but I may be wrong.
 
> John M. is correct when he says to me:
> 
>         ... it seems to me that you're criticism stems from the book's
failure
>         to adhere to certain preconceptions of what you what from a
novel, or
>         what you think a novel should do.
> 
> Yes.  Guilty as charged, and not especially ashamed thereof.  I'd like to
> meet someone who doesn't open a book of fiction to page one with _some_
> idea of what to expect.  

I used to resemble that remark, but thanks to _GR_, and TRP, I don't
approach works of fiction in this manner anymore, at least not these kinds
of texts.  Hence, my fondness for all of Pynchon's works--I've learned to
leave my traditional expectations at the door and just go along for the
ride.  Yes, there probably is "some criteria against which we may judge"
_GR_, but if we're talking about _GR_ as an antithesis of established
literary forms, then established literary forms of critque won't
necessarily give us _that_ criteria necessary for dealing with _GR_.  
   
While deliberately disrupting these expectations
> can be liberating for the writer and bracing for the reader, it doesn't
> make a book great, just iconoclastic.
> 
> In a similar vein (I think), Steven Maas writes:
> 
>         The issue of whether or not GR has a plot, or too many plots, or
>         whatever, strikes me as a red herring, that is, as irrelevant to
the
>         question of whether or not GR is a masterpiece. To continue the
fish
>         metaphor, if something smells, looks, sounds, and tastes like a
catfish
>         it's likely a catfish.  GR, so to speak, smells, looks, sounds,
and
>         tastes like a masterpiece (to me), no matter how many or how few
plots
>         it has.
> 
> Steven, I'd appreciate it if you'd flesh this out a bit, because I'm not
> sure I follow your shorthand.  Do you agree that plot is an essential
> element in fiction?  I have a hard time imagining how I would adjudge a
> novel as a masterpiece without considering plot(s), any more than I could
> determine whether a painting was a mastepiece without considering factors
> such as texture, balance, use of color and space.
> 
I'm not Steve, but didn't you say in a previous post that _GR_ has no plot,
per se?  Yes, I agree that with most works of fiction plot is essential,
but I don't see _GR_ as the normal "plot-driven" work of fiction.  In that
case, you may be applying things that cannot apply to _GR_.  I still say
the plot(s) are there, they're just not laid out in a linear fashion, which
works to subvert the more traditional notions of plot, and fiction, and the
critiquing thereof, as well.

> It's hard to compare the quality of two or three books without yeilding
to
> the subjectivist temptation of saying
> you-have-your-opinion-and-I-have-mine.  To Henry, John and Steven (and
the
> multitude listening in) I ask, what _are_ the appropriate criteria for
> determining which of Pynchon's books are great, as opposed to merely
good?
> 
And that was my point up above--standard methods of critigue do not work
with _GR_, although they do work with COL49, to an extent.  But, like
Jimmy, I'm curious as to how y'all "critigue" or "judge" _GR_.

> --Jimmy
> 
> http://www.angelfire.com/oh/Insouciance/index.html
> 
> 
> P.S.  Re Henry the Navigator, my vote for best bar in the world goes to
El
> Navigador in Lagos, The Algarve, Portugual (where ol' Henry is big stuf).
> P-list meeting there someday?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>