Idolatry

[KENNETH HOUGHTON]

     Speaking as a hockey fan who rarely pays attention to the Blackhawks 
     and stopped entirely when they traded Roenick to Phoenix, let's start 
     with a randomly-chosen part of the Pynchon discussion in "American 
     Plastic." (I haven't re-read the essay in nearly a decade, so I just 
     opened to a page [123 in _Matters of Fact and of Fiction: Essays 
     1973-1976_, Random House, 1977):
     
     "It is curious to read a work [_GR_] that excites the imagination but 
     disturbs the aesthetic sense....To compare Pynchon with Joyce, say, is 
     to compare a kindergartner to a graduate student (parenthetic 
     omitted). Pynchon's prose rattles on and on, broken by occasionally 
     lengthy songs even bit as bad, lyrically, as those of  Bob Dylan.
     
     (rather pointedly accurate example, if not an insult to Dylan, and end 
     of paragpragh omitted)
     
     "...In fact, I suspect the energy expended in reading _GR_ is, for 
     anyone, rather greater than that expended by Pynchon in the actual 
     writing."
     
     I don't think anyone on this list--certainly not those who 
     participated in the GR GR, or those who will do so for M&D--could 
     argue with any of the quoted statements save the comparison with 
     Joyce.
     
     Is it possible that the essay wasn't discussed by anyone who read it 
     because we all found it more accurate than not?


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Idolatry
Author:  Andrew Clarke Walser <awalse1 at icarus.cc.uic.edu> at dbnaccip
Date:    5/13/97 9:45 PM


On Tuesday, 13 May 1997, Jules Siegel wrote:
     
        Is this the Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr., fan club?  Are we allowed
only to offer fawning praise to his talent . . .?  What is really going 
on here?
     
Unfortunately, Jules has a point here.  I thought the discussion of Gore 
Vidal's "American Plastic" -- carried on, predominantly, by those who had 
not read the essay -- showed a depressing philistinism.  As much as I 
admire Pynchon, I do not admire him as a hockey fan does the Blackhawks, 
or as a Trekkie does Captain Kirk.  
     
Jules also raises, later in his posting, an interesting question:  Does 
the INACCURACY of some of Pynchon's work mar it aesthetically?  Does 
Pynchon sacrifice a potentially valuable realism -- one toward which he 
seems to lean -- for the sake of cheap literary effects?  And does MASON 
AND DIXON reveal a different attitude toward historical "fidelity" than, 
say, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW?
     
                                Andrew Walser
                             University of Illinois-Chicago