re-reading, re-listening, re-thinking...a reply

[Joel Weierman]

Thanks to all who replied to my post
on the difficulty I am having with Pynchon.
I was most impressed by Craig's reply
which I think summed up one of the feelings 
I am having as to the different experience 
with other novels as compared to Pynchon:

>The sorts of books you're labeling both easy and rewarding can frequently
be
> summed up in a moral; you can boil them down that narrowly.  One of the
nice
> things about an expansive novel like GR or [insert your favorite long
novel
> here] is that they create the space to explore an entire philosophical
> framework.  As such, much of the action of a book like this has to bear a
> greater burden of being "symbolic of something," but this is a difference
of
> degree rather than kind.  Certainly Kerr in "The Liar's Club" has shaped
and
> selected her material so that it too is symbolic.  Or maybe it's that
these
> easily rewarding texts reward us with ideas about people rather than
ideas
> about ideas.  It's probably an eaiser writing task to engage a reader in
the
> concerns of realistically developed characters than in fantastically
> developed ideas.  

I think the reason I am still plugging away at Pynchon is that I am 
trying to find that secret that is buried deep inside his novels 
that will be more rewarding than anything else I have read 
before. Crying of Lot 49 gave me glimpses of that and I have 
enjoyed several parts of Gravity's Rainbow (i.e. the English
candy sequence, psychology theories, etc.) as well as 
Vineland.

I have to agree with Vasky, I also had an easier time with 
Vineland, able to go through the first-run with only
minor problems compared to those I am having with V.

Where was it that I read (Jules Siegel?) Pynchon wrote
Vineland to make some money to be able to continue 
writing his more meaningful and difficult(?) works?

My Mason & Dixon is on its way on some plane to 
Japan and should be arriving in a  few days. 
I think I will lay low for awhile..

Happy reading...

-Joel WEIERMAN