The Embattled Keith Strikes Back!

[Brecher_Keith/mskcc_Neurology at mskmail.mskcc.org]

Item Subject: Re: TWILIGHT OF THE IDOL(SMASHER)
     Having been perhaps rightfully accused of waffling on precise details 
     about why I hate that overstuffed masterpiece MASON & DIXON, I first 
     thought of providing specific quotations and page references to Red 
     Hat's sacred texts, but the mere thought of lifting the weighty covers 
     of Ruggle's latest masterwork, seemingly heavier even than the fifty 
     pound lead covers of William Vollmann's GRAVE OF LOST STORIES, made me 
     too tired. Those requiring details should send me an SASE and I'll 
     send you back a faux-Paolizzi sculpture containing them.
        What TRP did really well in V, CL49, and, magnificently, in GR is imply 
     mind-bending revelations which he, of course, never delivered on, but 
     somehow made appear genuine. Magic, get it? The classic example is the 
     literal crying of lot 49 in CL49. The ending is understated and all the 
     more breathtaking for that and, though not the first, is the archetypal 
     instance of this kind of sleight of hand in TRP's fiction. Of course, TRP
     stops at the very threshold of revelation, incidentally making the reader  
     feel just like Oedipa as she contemplates San Narciso for the first time,  
     because what could he possibly reveal? Spielberg tried this in the         
     original CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and everybody insisted that he 
     actually show the inside of the mother ship and when They released the     
     "special edition" of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS it was a huge let down and everybody 
     wished they'd stayed home and read GR instead.
        The apotheosis of TRP's missed message motif occurs where else but in GR
     and there are many instances; the most salient are the Kirghiz light       
     episode and Slothrop's missed revelation at Test Stand VII. I sure don't   
     know how the old Pynchon made anybody believe he was privy to truths his   
     bumbling, sweet characters and his brilliant, gimlet-eyed readers would    
     ever be on the verge of deciphering, but considering the astounding        
     intellects on this list, somebody out there must know. 
        On the basis of VINELAND and M&D, it seems that TRP has lost his magic  
     powers. I'm not saying that Pynchon is an aberration as a novelist, which  
     seems naive. I think it's more akin to early Dylan and late Dylan. There   
     seems little doubt that sometime in the 1970's, something happened to the  
     Good Bob, maybe too much pot smoking, so that he became the Bad Bob of the 
     80's and 90's (except for OH MERCY). I don't know what the hell TRP was    
     doing with himself between GR and VINELAND, but if M&D is what it was, he  
     should have been smoking more dope. 
        TRP's disappearing act made sense when he was writing true masterworks  
     like GR, but now that he's publishing crap like VINELAND and M&D, he might 
     as well come out and do Jay Leno. The only real conspiracy surrounding M&D 
     is the nauseating publicity that surrounded its release. The leaked opening
     sentence and riven-in-stone April release date played along nicely with    
     TRP's mysterious absence so that great things were implied, namely, the    
     Idol, weary of his wisdom, descending alone from his mountain, encountering
     no one, and dropping his latest load on the masses. Thanks Pynch.
       [I think Melanie Jackson is to blame in some way. Isn't she Rick Moody   
     and Matt Ruff's agent? Didn't TRP say something good about Matt Ruff? And  
     didn't Rick Moody say plenty of good stuff about M&D. Talk about lead      
     plates buried in the earth and something moving Westward, what about the   
     Melanie Jackson conspiracy?]
        The awesome intellect of the man behind the curtain, said by Chris to be
     very much intact, does not seem any more awesome or encyclopedic in M&D    
     than, say, Wilbur Smith or James Michener. It's hardly a great ride. If GR 
     is Space Mountain, M&D is The People Mover. 
        What's really so bad about M&D? Compare the Poor Richard stuff in GR to 
     the Benjamin Franklin stuff in M&D. And, somebody please explain to me     
     what's so goddamn brilliant and meaningful about the George Washington     
     episode. Those horrible hemp jokes with Washington punning on pot and joint
     cannot be justified even in a masterpiece like M&D. And George and Martha's
     song. Man, does that ever suck. Whatever happened to the complex songs and 
     poem parodies of GR. They've become "I'm a Cop," I guess. Mentioning       
     FINNEGAN'S WAKE, Chris, is apt. GR is the equal of ULYSSES, but M&D is not 
     FINNEGAN'S WAKE. More like STEPHEN HERO.
        Yes, less densely embedded. More subtle? No. TRP tries his usual mock   
     revelations, but they don't come off in M&D. A specific instance? Dixon's  
     collier brig experience. Another? The Jesuit and EIC conspiracies. The mood
     is elegaic. Sure is, though senile might be a better word. 
        I think you're wrong, Chris, that TRP is writing a different kind of    
     book. Despite the stiff eighteenth-century prose, he's re-writing his old  
     stuff--same bumbling, good natured characters, same monolithic, evil       
     corporate entities, same lousy puns, same fake revelations, same quirks of 
     dialogue, same penchant for the mock-musical. The problem is that he does  
     it badly and the crappy songs, awful dialogue, and flimsy conspiracies     
     unfortunately make something of a mockery of GR, CL49, and V. 
        Which isn't to say that TRP should stop re-writing the same novel. J.G. 
     Ballard's been doing that for thirty years, and he keeps getting better and
     better. So, place the heavy truths of M&D aside for a night or two, and    
     read a really worthy book like COCAINE NIGHTS that will never make the best
     seller list, and certainly won't get a front page review in NYTBR, but is  
     the novel M&D should have been but wasn't. 
       
_