Opinions

[MantaRay at aol.com]

Jules, my man, slow down...

>You don't know why? Because you're an attention-getting jerk who can't come
>up with anything creative or original to say and so you discharge your
>frustration by just writing any stupid thing that comes into your tiny
>little mind.

Ouch! Now that's an opinion! Definitely my kind of invective...

>This is what I found:  Well crafted but very grim, dark Heavy Metal
>landscape filled with mostly defiantly disgusting characters portaryed in
>gross situations. Lots of fecal imagery, like an unwashed stained glass
>dingleberry. Feels like stepping into a dimly lighted diorama of semi-living
>rotting corpses trying to have fun on a bomb-shattered graveyard. Bitterly
>graphic sadomasochistic, homosexual and pedophiliac sex scenes, rendered
>without love or affection.

Fuckin' A! Now we're getting somewhere! Reminds me of dear old Long Beach,
CA. That's a pretty heavy synopsis, something which is, excuse the pun, right
up my alley...

>I feel as if I'm forbidden to say anything from the heart about Thomas
>Pynchon's work because I'm not ready to nominate him for the Nobel Prize and
>have some frankly negative observations about his material and techniques.

Well.....you are! Ah, that's a joke. Say whatever the fuck you want to say.
That's the freedom of the internet until Dollar Bill Clinton shuts us down.
Although, if we're talking about innovators, no one has done more in the last
30 years besides Pynchon as far as I'm concerned. I think his mastery, to
quote Tom LeClair, of "materials" is the very reason he should be nominated
and win. 

>It gets quite Stalinist on this list, believe me, when all subscribers must
>bow in the direction of the Leader

ok, that's a bit alarmist...

>and cast stones 

"virtual" stones; any bruises?

>at anyone who finds the
>slightest flaw in any of his works, or even suggests that they aren't all to
>the taste of every literate, intelligent reader. Did Gore Vidal have
>something personal against Thomas Pynchon? Is Gore Vidal an insecure
>"wannabe writer?" Or was he expressing a perfectly legitimate opinion that
>is shared by many intelligent, perceptive readers who just don't mesh with
>Thomas Pynchon?

Well, that's a simple one. There's no such thing as a illegitimate opinion,
of course, and we all know Vidal is full of himself...

>I've read a little of T. Coragessian Boyle and found his depiction of the
>Northern California dope scene (in which I lived for quite a while) much
>more accurate than Pynchon's, not to speak of funnier. 

In my opinion, accuracy is not what Pynchon readers are necessarily looking
for...that is, accuracy in the realist tradition. 

>It's an entirely invented work. 

Not an entirely inaccurate assessment of a novel. What did Anita, whoever
that is, expect? Hard Copy?

>What is really going on here?

Opinions, my man, just opinions. And a lot of complaining from people who
aren't confident in their opinions...

MantaRay