Gottfried & Blicero, Nietzsche & Pynchon

[Paul Mackin]

On Tue, 22 Aug 2000, Stacy Borah wrote:

> Saying that there is "Not much of anything careless about Pynchon the 
> writer" is overlooking one very important fact that Pynchon himself has 
> admitted to:  the fact that he himself can't remember what he meant when he 
> wrote many of the episodes in "GR", that he was either too wasted or too far 
> out on some existential ledge to pull any coherent meaning out of his own 
> text.  Can't remember right offhand where he said this, but i will look 
> diligently tomorrow when I wake up.


Think this was from Jules Siegel but I don't recall it referring to "many
of the episodes"--possibly however. I would think that in any good writer
the meaning--the meaning for him or her--would be in substantial part  
directed from the unconscious level--just as much of the meaning for the
readers is unconscious (not all of course). But the point I wanted to make
was that the book has such a complex, worked-out structure to it (as
documented by Weisenburger for one) that a substantial part of the
composition must surely has been carried out in the full light of day with
all the author's conscious wits about him. Once this phase was complete P
could light up his pipe and let the surface flow. (or so I would imagine)

			P.