Schmuck Amuck

[Andersen Jesper Sparre]

For give me, it seems to be a crime here to criticize any of TRP's work 
on this page.  You're all not living up to the intelligence I would have 
expected of you.  Keith said he didn't like M&D, neither do I.  No big 
deal.  What is weird is that you all get so huffy about his not liking 
the novel and calling it a sham.  Instead of actually discussing 
anything, we're all just insisting of a low level name calling which 
really does lead me to believe that perhaps Keith wasx right, and that 
you all have been played for suckers.  Come on now.  You may think the 
book was good, but that doesn't mean that others  cannot reasonably 
belive that its best use is as a pretty good doorstop.  This isn't a slam 
on TRP, nor is it an explicit demand that M&D be GR pt. 2.  It is meerely 
saying that M&D doesn't have any of the great characteristics that GR 
did.  The research is there, and I'm sure TRP could win as many 
docterates as he cares to on the work he's done, but the story just isn't 
there.  Its a linear narrative without _any_ flow.  Sure, there is 
perhaps some great moments when Mason pines forhis lost love, but I don't 
find that it approaches the last section of pt.1 of GR where Roger thinks 
about his love for Jessica.  I did find the cheese wheel funny, I'll 
admit.  The basic issue is that this should have been everything GR was 
and more, not because he has to follow GR in theme or style, but the 
reader annoyance quotient on his narrative indulgences is about 100 times 
higher in this one.  Sure, all novels, and especially TRP's benifit from 
re-reading, but the reward should be worth the effort, which it is not 
for me, and for others.  I'll go read the next Pynchon novel, in '10, or 
whatever, but this one may very well sit on my shelf gathering dust while 
I continue the rampant dogearing of GR.  Don't knock Keith for having 
reasonable expectations of the book.  You only make yourselves out as 
thin skinned Pynchon groupies who can't find anything to fault with him.

	Jesper Andersen