[4] Trying Crying

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

Now now Andrew, we wouldn't want to set a bad example for any youngsters who might 
be checking us out while waiting for the latest update from NICK at NIGHT.    Your angry 
and dismissive post hurt my feelings a bit, but I can't deny I've been having fun teasing 
you too.  I don't quite know why you think that just dismissing and dissing me is a way to 
respond to my comments, but I guess that works on some folks because of your 
oracularity.  Not on me though, who has tangled with the Werewolf and trolled for 
Steelhead in dangerous rapids.  There are three areas where I objected to your comments 
on CL49.  None of these, it seems, has received any serious consideration from you, 
though you are very good at quietly *backing off* (that's a descriptive, not a tactical term) 
when it seems the weight of reason is against your position.

Simply put:
(1) We agree that GR must be termed *greater* than CL49.  To me, that in no way implies 
a flaw in CL49.  But it seems to for you.  Does it or doesn't it?

(2) You specifically described CL49 as a *pastiche* of a detective novel.  It isn't, as I and a 
few others have pointed out.  Now you say:'

>There are other things about the book which remind me of detective
>stories a la Chandler et al.

So now it just *reminds* you of detective stories.  (Is that a *backing off*?  Doesn't seem 
like a *progressive kntting into*). Fine.  It reminds me of them too, but that doesn't make 
it a parody.  Right?
Some intersting comments from Paul M. and Craig C. on this question of *parody* vs. 
*pastiche* prompt the thought that, really, it is usually used, it seems to me, in its second 
dictionary sense of *rag and tail ends*, as in *Frankenstein's monster is a pastiche human 
being.*  Perhaps some critics draw useful distinctions between pastiche and parody, but I 
was using them synonomously.  Neither sense, it still seems clear, describes CL49.

(3)  You clearly claimed that the length of GR, and the lack thereof in CL49 were indicators 
of each book's scope.  My argument is that length, in vacuo, tells us nothing about a 
novel's scope.  It's simply not a useful variable; though it may correlate with scope, it has 
no causal relationship.  I don't want to get nit-picky on this, but you did make the original 
claim.  I'm not sure what your position on this question is now,

As a way of trying to brush off these problems with your case,  you claim that my 
questions would require more labor than you are interested in expending to adequately 
answer, or you accuse me of merely trying to pick holes in what you write.  Those are 
pretty thin cop-outs, though.  How else can I say: *Andrew, this is wrong,* without 
showing why it's wrong?  Maybe you're used to making sweeping statements and not 
being called out on it.  You do have a tendency to spout pronouncements and you do 
often, IMO, reduce GR, and all of Pynchon, to an historical vision that I find misses much 
of the art in the books.  But that's you.  I have no problem with that.  I certainly respect 
your substantive ideas, and I think I've acknowledged your useful comments about old 
LudWitt in the past which I found illuminating.  But if you make what seem to be 
indefensible claims, I certainly have a right to critique them.

And you made some indefensible claims in that original CL49 post, and I've been jabbing 
at you but not going full-tilt hostile.  Perhaps you should listen with less prejudgment.

john m