Elitist Pynchon-ites

[Terrance]

I probably misunderstood your comments, misconstrued,
misinterpreted, and misinformed. Does Pynchon write for an
elite? Are we, the members of a Pynchon discussion list some
sort of elite? Why qualify our deliberations on these
matters with complimentary nuance? What's wrong with
ordinary common sense? My own reading of Pynchon has been
greatly enhanced by the insights of what others on this list
have taught me and by what critics have published. What a
wonderful gift, to be able to read, to be moved or disturbed
or excited in some way by a book. A book often manifests an
urge to talk or write about it. Lists like this one can
satisfy these urges and in writing about the books, we can
often clarify and crystallize the sense we are making of it.
We can expand the sense we are making of the book by reading
what others are making of it. These interchanges are what I
miss most about teaching. Here it is often difficult to
discover the various temperaments, the different literary
and life experiences of the members, and this is so very
important to discussion, because these affect the very
different ways in which members encounter and become
involved in the books. Once we begin to discuss the books,
we cannot consider it simply a medium of communication
between author and reader, but as a more general medium of
communication Among readers. Exchanging our experiences with
the books, we direct others to the elements in the text that
best illustrate or support our interpretations and we help
one another to attend to words, phases, images, scenes,
allusions, irony, and so on, that we may otherwise have
overlooked, slighted or misinterpreted. Reading posts here I
am often motivated or encouraged to reread an entire story,
episode or scene. Sometimes I revise my interpretation and
sometimes I don't. Sometimes my interpretation is
strengthened or confirmed or at least I able to take some
solace in the fact that I have done some judicious reading,
some potential interpretation, but I have not quite got it
right. With a book like GR, discussion does not seem to lead
to consensus so much as a general increase in our
appreciation of the book. I don't attribute this to anything
postmodern readings of GR stress (reading or misreading
postmodern texts), but to something inherent in the work
itself. This is my own "hang-up" as that pair of critics
says of Brian McHale. I find such readings have more to do
with reading then GR. And while I acknowledge the enormous
importance of the reader and reading process in so called
Postmodern texts, and how far the Postmodern authors have
pushed the envelope in this area, I think this has been over
emphasized, particularly as it pertains to GR. Perhaps it is
only my own stubborn nostalgia. There have been times when
differences in our conceptions of the nature of art or in
our habits of approach to the books or of handling our
responses to them, have diverted our attention and created
such variance that we can find no common ground for
discussion. This often happens when we discuss sensitive
matters, politics or even a topic like this one-elite(s). 

The ordinary reader is not ordinary in the sense of average.
I am a very good reader, but I am not a critic, a
professional. The critic as I stated, cannot read for me, he
is not a surrogate reader, but more like a master builder, a
fellow reader who earns my interest, sometimes my ridicule,
as a good master builder earns the interest and respect of
his fellow workers, by his strength as a reader of
particular texts. The master critic will possess a high
degree of sensitivity to verbal nuance and will have devoted
much time and energy to acquiring a capacity for
intellectual as well as emotional self-awareness, so that he
may be self-critical. I think the best critics are deeply
humane personalities who have broad and deep reading
experience (age is a plus, wisdom comes with it). I think
the critic needs these attributes (not exclusive to the
critic), because, to take Lycidas as example again, I think
it takes more than knowledge of the tradition of pastoral
elegy to write a brilliant essay or even "do justice to" a
poem like Lycidas. Again, the critic is not ordinary, he
possesses knowledge or insight---political, historical,
psychological, philosophical, for example that admit of an
acute angle of vision and usually a particular framework.
The critic is not ordinary because he publishes his essays
or books as a professional or expert and to do so he must
develop not only his reading skills but his ability to
communicate his critical readings of texts. 

That being said, I don't think it wise to turn to the critic
before one's own encounter with the text has been thorough.
Reading critics before doing so may inhibit a spontaneous
insight or retard enjoyment.