re P's intentions

[Meg Larson]

All I know is that I appreciate the fact that ol' Tom has kept his yap shut
regarding What It All Really Means.  The one thing I hate most of all is
when an author--pick an author, any author--goes to the media and tells me
What It All Really Means.  Within reason, I want it to mean what I want it
to mean, and in some ways, that (those) meaning(s) change(s) from reading to
reading, discussion to discussion, and that is the beauty of Pynchon.  While
it adds something to the work of, say, James Ellroy, to know some of his
history, it doesn't hinder the enjoyment (for lack of a better word) of the
work simply because I may not know anything about his history; the work
stands on its own.  

Having said that, it doesn't hinder my enjoyment and/or my interpretation of
Gravity's Rainbow not having lived through WWII--sweet young thing that I
am--but having lived through and survived the 70's sure adds to my
interpretation and enjoyment of Vineland.  In both instances, I don't need
ol' Tom to say a word in public--it's (mostly) all there on the page, and
what I don't know first-hand, I can glean through my imagination.  A-and
yes, I do feel like I know a bit about Pynchon, at least a tad about the man
(woman? hermaphrodite?) who wrote GR and VL, and who he was at the time he
wrote them.  Flame me if you must, but no one writes well what they cannot
feel, whether they feel those things through experience or imagination. 
There's just no way in hell that Pynch sat down one day and thought, "I'm
gonna write a gazillion words about things I don't give a shit about."  Or
maybe he did, and he's pulled off a helluva scam on me.  How would I know
the difference?  He hasn't come out and told me that he fooled me, that it
was a big joke, and that's what I love about The Man--he lets me believe
whatever the hell I do, and leaves the cold critical analysis to the cold
critical analysts (no letters, please).    

Whether or not our inferences are "right" they are OUR inferences, and that
is one of the goals, I would think, of art.    Does it help in any way to
know some/anything about the author?  Perhaps, but by the same token, it
sure doesn't hurt any to NOT know.  Again, within reason, it prolly doesn't
matter what we think--we're thinking, that's the thing.  I think.

But then again, I could be wrong.

Enjoying the civil discourse--what a change, 
M.
  
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"I could survive all right . . . it seems to me that just voting people off
doesn't really have anything to do with real abilities.  I'd have killed
them all in a week, and that would have been the end of that."
---Clint Eastwood, on the reality show "Survivor."

Meg Larson
Saginaw, MI
megley1 at excite.com





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