LA Times LINKS TRP, Roth, Bellows, Mailer

[Patrick Lynch]

So I'm at the gym reading and the LA Times "Life and Style" (Monday,
5-12-97) section pops up on the old Protex or whatever its called and
there's pix of Mailer, Bellow, Roth, but none of TRP--Now whyzat I
wonder--and there's old Brian Stonehill acting like he doesn't know us
Kennedy-assassination-like-conspirators (see Lane in New Yorker).  Like
he's distant from the Pynchoniacs, and after us spending bucks on his books
and website and all, talking about us like he's Jules and all ;-).
Stonehill is quoted as saying that TRP is "a cult figure among the kids"
'cuz of his outsider status (How outside is a 200,000 First Printing?).

(BTW, Stonehill uses the Web to hold out hope for the length of M&D--"[it]
holds people's attention for hours.  As a result, we've been learning to
sit in front of some kind of text for an extended period without being
interrupted by commercials.  We're learning to read again.)

And they link all these guys together like they're all trying to write the
great american novel (sic), but they all--except TRP, who must've had a
previous engagement and couldn't like talk with them--say they're not
writing it (except Roth who actually wrote one with the same title).
They've given up on that.  Then they get Leslie Marmon Silko and Ishmael
Reed to taske potshots at all of 'em including our beloved.  Reed sees 'em
as "dinosaurs" and maintains that lit. has moved beyond the "postwar
pantheon".  Now this might be true, but I think Ulin (the Times writer) may
be guilty of PC-ness or of lumping together an un-lumpable group.  Yeah,
theyr are all white and they are all pretty good, or at least notable
writers, but I don't see them hanging around the Algonquin or somewhere in
Northern California or Manhattan Beach talking about their novels.

Kinda wish they let the Cornell guy stand on his own here, but it gives him
a little media--like he wants it or anything.

The best part, though, is the cover picture.  M&D is way bigger than the
other guy's books.  Bigger than their pictures even.

there ya go--Patrick


P.S.  Has anyone found a copy of M&D that doesn't have battle scars on the
cover?  It's cool and all, but about as tender as an apple.

Patrick Lynch (padraig at well.com and padrai6 at ix.netcom.com)
"Is it the water or the wave?"  John Fowles, -The Magus-