New York Times Magazine just pissed me off...

[Paul Mackin]

It kind of did me too and I intended to comment before now, and it's no longer  possible to reread, its having been thrown out in the trash. Struck me as the usual sort of filler piece designed to fit in between gorgeous clothing ads (now these I like) but not really trying to say anything. It was curiously contradictory of itself in some respects it seemed to me about the various texts mentioned and strangely at one point a bit elitist in contrast to the general tone of the piece.  Ulysses, The Waste Land, and Recherche all got a few nice things said about them. Their only problem was they dragged on too long. The elitist bit was that Ulysses was made bearable only by the fact that an eminent critic was giving the course, probably at some fancy college or something, and the poor slob without such advantages was wasting his time not to say being just plain duped. A possible clue to where the aritcle was coming from was the "who wrote this" line at the bottom of the page. The author  is none other than a biographer of easy-to-read Saul Below. Wonder if this explains why the worst opprobrium was saved for "hard" writers who happen to be roughly contemporary with Below like OUR YOU KNOW WHO.

Grrrr . . . and hoping I haven't got the facts too awfully wrong.

			P.

----------
From: 	davemarc[SMTP:davemarc at panix.com]
Sent: 	Tuesday, March 18, 1997 10:58 PM
To: 	Pynchlist
Subject: 	Re: New York Times Magazine just pissed me off...

> From: Keith Brecher <Keith_Brecher at brown.edu>
> To: MESCOLAR <MESCOLAR at peddie.k12.nj.us>
> Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: New York Times Magazine just pissed me off...
> Date: Tuesday, March 18, 1997 10:38 PM
> 
> Yeah. I read that crazy James Atlas piece and I was thinking the whole
> time: man, this guy hates having to think too hard when he's reading.
But,
> why ruin it for the rest of us. The article should have been called "Ode
to
> Danielle Steele" or something. The hell of it is, GR is not all that
> difficult and "Infinite Jest" probably should not be placed in the same
> sentence as GR and "The Sot-Weed Factor." Now, "Women and Men": that's a
> tough rewarding read and should have been in the slot occupied by
Infinite
> Jest. With regard to the NYT magazine being generally intellectually
> stimulating, is that really true? It seems to me that the Times is more
in
> the business of anointing people and events as being especially
newsworthy.
> Witness the recent cover story on Bruce Springsteen in which we were
> instructed that the bard from Jersey is a sort of John Steinbeck. Oh
> ganders.... 

Well, it still seems to be the paper of choice of P.  Though there's no
denying that this week's magazine section was particularly disgraceful. 
Worst succession of op-ed pieces I've seen in a while.

I did like Frank Rich's piece on Scientology elsewhere in the Sunday
Splash.  But today I read Alexander Cockburn's assertion in the New York
Press that it was "a hysterical column...displaying utter ignorance of any
of the issues involved."  Ah, enlightenment is such a scarce commodity....

davemarc