Gras statt Grass!

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

Lorentzen / Nicklaus wrote:
> 
> s~Z schrieb:
> > I'll be posting a sign-up for TDTD as time permits. Must admit I wasn't
> > rooting for Pynchon this time.
> 
>  You mean, you really prefer the Blechtrommel to Gravity's Rainbow?! It's like
>  voting for, say, Sting when you could have Donald Fagen. I can't believe
>  this... GR, V and M&D are, according to my ever so humble opinion, all far
>  better than this one good book of Grass (- to put it more exactly: it's first
>  2/3 are good), that reaches about the quality of Vineland. Even Col49 is 10
>  times better than anything Grass has written after he returned from Paris. This
>  social democratic common sense bullshit has nothing to do with our man's high
>  art:  "the real stuff - long-practiced, all-out, contrary-to-fact, capital M
>  Magic".
>                  Shame on you, Kai


I don't think statements like those being made and written
all over the world-including germany--are simply based on
personal taste or preference, as in the example you give
here of sting and fagan, but purport to define human
accomplishment according to several historical criteria.
That is why this not easy to do and some may argue it is
impossible to do with our contemporaries, since we lack the
necessary distance from the individual artist, and we have
difficulty--- as I noted listening to an interview last
night with two Grass scholars and a translator (they had
difficulty with the drummer)  finding adequate definitions
and concepts in terms of the works that are created before
our eyes like magic. This is tough, as the post-modern folks
have learned, and although I sometimes have a joke at their
expense, it is not that I don't believe their work important
and valuable, and I certainly don't envy their task,
particularly because post-modernism has certain "built in"
or intrinsic paradoxes if you will. So we are dependent upon
models of greatness--the artist that are so rare, that
execute enduring high achievement, independent of their
social conditions. Such artists are often uncomprehended by
most in their own time, misunderstood and often misused by
those around them. Thomas Pynchon may fade to obscurity and
Grass may do the same, I  sincerely doubt it and I think we
are doubly blessed to have DY and TD and GR and M&D. We are
fortunate to have their works being read and written about
all around the world, since it is tough, to be a novelist
today, particularly a novelist that writes complex
tomes--Grass, Pynchon, Gaddis and few others--that require a
real dedicated audience and few men and women willing to
commit their career to such artists and keep them out in
front of a public bored with anything that doesn't vibrate
and get a virus. 

TF     
> 
>  PS: But here's another clue for you all. In "Der Butt" Amanita muscaria plays a
>  similar role like in GR. Keith & Terrance could write together an article on
>  this for the next edition of Pynchon Notes: "Mushroom epistemologies: Pynchon,
>  Grass & the objective alchemical perspective". Must be mindblowing.


When we are finished, we will post it here first.