GRGR Slothrop & Sloth

[rj]

Doug asks
> 
> I'd like to hear more about the genre of essay in which the author, writing
> in a non-fiction mode, does not reveal "anything of his personal 'beliefs'
> ".

Meditation. Disquisition. Thesis. Tribute. Panegyric. Philippic.
Polemic. Jeremiad. Inquiry. Survey. It's almost always a rhetorical
form, hardly ever an autobiographical one.

An occasional piece such as it is, written for a quasi-highbrow arts
supplement -- the activity of reading which would seem to qualify for
the very definition of sloth Pynchon deplores/valorises in the text of
the article -- is hardly a deathbed confession, nor even necessarily a
statement of personal opinion. (I think you're confusing it with an
*editorial*.) The piece was commissioned anyway, wasn't it? Surely its
primary purpose is entertainment, its context that of an intellectual
diversion?

Of course, you still haven't mentioned how and where and what the
snippet (or the essay) does "disclose" of the way "TRP thinks about 
God and religion and time and technology", which is the simple issue I
raised. But I guess attack is, after all, the only form of defence for
some. 

best