Crying Reread

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

Paul Mackin writes:

> Reread _The Crying of Lot 49_ over the last couple days (after all
> these years) trying to figure out why Pynch himself put it down in
> _Slow Learner_, notwithstanding the fact LitCriters love to play
> with it so.

As with much else in that intro he did not simply put it down - or
rather put it down simply. He used words to the effect that he forgot
everything he previously learned about writing when he wrote `The
Crying of Lot 49'. This doesn't imply he forgot all the literature,
philosophy, history and science he had previously learned, nor how
they weave together into his own blend of myth and magic. It suggests
to me that he was unhappy with the presentation.

> Agree with John (I think) that it serves as an
> introduction to _GR_, though paradoxically a danger may lie
> here. Does _Crying_ tend to spell out P's rather ideosyncratic use
> of certain ideas TOO specifically at times--like the two kinds of
> entropy, metaphor-making and the like? Didn't he later learn to fuzz
> things up to better effect? Also _Crying_ seems to mix the
> elegant/poetic with the demotic/colloquial a bit awkwardly. GR
> separates the voices more gracefully. Hope this doesn't sound too
> dumb. I ain't no literary critic. Will read again in another 30
> years.

I agree TCOL49 is weaker on these three counts and I will amplify:

i) the ideas presented too obviously/glibly/simplistically

It's a short book. So, the presentation is compressed and simplified.
And that's not just the presentation of his ideas. The characters in
such a short book have to work too hard effecting the plot to allow
time for them to dally and reveal something characteristic, human,
lifelike. So, they reveal the fault usually (and in many ways
unfairly) tacked onto GR of being 2-d cartoons. In GR most of the
characters have their moment of epiphany - our epiphany, not theirs -
where their response in a given situation shows something fundamental
about human nature. Contrast this with Oedipa's trail through the
purgatory on the night she meets her anarchic Jesus to her own
revelation (which does not happen in the book). It's all as programmed
as John's Apocalypse. There's no depth of character revealed here
whatever the depth of experience of human (or divine) nature and
humanity (or divinity).

ii) the narrative voices in GR are much sharper

In GR each section of narrative really seems to belong to somebody or
something.You know when you are entering Roger's world or Jessica's.
You are presented with the weakness of the sadist, the strength of the
masochist. You get to taste the E Coli which will give you release now
and forever more. Even the anonymous narration comes in a variety of
distinctive voices, none of them individuals but definite types: the
huckster, the romantic poet, the pornographer, the sentimental
surrealist, the film buff, the camp director of epic theatre, the
fool.

In TCOL49 there is mostly plain simple narration. We get a play within
a play for pyrotechnics and no explanation of what is going on. But
otherwise it's a straight story from A to err ... Y and all points in
between.

iii) the poetry is thereby confined to the poet narrator rather than
infringing on the character's voices

Poetry is only permissible in the right voice. Sharpening the voices
in GR means that things are better contrasted, that we know where we
stand as reader. It does not seem this way at first - in fact quite to
the contrary because we don't know the voices. But, after some
exposure, we know exactly who is talking to us. The poetic narrator is
just one more voice, but it is one which is used with incredible
precision. Switches from poet to comic and back constitute the most
thrilling moments in GR.

IN TCOL49 I not only recall less moments of poetry (although taking
the term literally The Couriers Tragedy is hilarious `poetry') I also
recall less balance, less control of the tone and voice. No
spine-tingling as I read it, anyway, not like GR.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.