Slate, Mason Dixon and general randomness..

[Tom Stanton]

At 11:50 AM 5/6/97, aayala at randomhouse.com wrote:
>I think that Kirn missed an important point about works like GR and M&D.
These 
>novels are about the metamorphosis of the static novel into something more 
>profound. Pynchon, Joyce, Barth, Stern, Perec, and other experimental
novelists 
>are overthrowing mainstream conventions to prove that the novel tradition
can 
>change to incorporate the world's idea of media, to prove that the novel is 
>robust.

Agreed, and one of the reasons I like TRP, Gaddis, Barth, etc. What I
found interesting about Kirn's trashing of M&D is that he must first 
position TRP on a literary pedestal before knocking him down. He
spends a lot of time on the setup, knocks TRP, then admits he hasn't
finished the book & doesn't need to since he's dealing with an icon 
instead of the work. 

>Not everyone can enjoy the craft, just as not everyone can enjoy romance 
>novels, memoirs, or civil war docu-dramas. You can't expect to appreciate
M&D 
>if you don't dig the craft behind the story. 

This is an ongoing debate among some friends of mine, along the lines
of "Taste's Great/Less Filling." The "Taste's Great" crowd loves Big Books
from TRP, Wallace, Gaddis, Joyce, etc. for the very reasons Kirn decries M&D,
while the "Less Filling" crowd likes "a good read" and cries for more
entertainment 
value & less "literary" treatments. 

>As for Vidal, well, he's a fun read. Let's leave it at that.

Aw, he's a good old curmudgeon...