SPHERE to Eternity

[rj]

dmillison
> rj,
> Can we agree that Pynchon is larger, more complex, and more mysterious,
> than our respective insights and assumptions let us apprehend. A library of
> criticism still hasn't gotten to the bottom of what his writing's about. 

I don't quite agree with this formulation. I think Mr Pynchon is
accessible to the general reader. He or she can participate without
having to run to a library of criticism to explicate the texts. I don't
think it's helpful or accurate to characterise Mr Pynchon's work as
mysterious and ultimately incomprehensible, as if it were some esoteric
gospel.

> I
> do believe that Pynchon plays many, many games with his text. He works his
> manuscripts over for years, decades even. He writes in layers and invites
> us to dig deep to understand what he might be saying.

I agree with this.

> He's a literary and
> intellectual elitist par excellence

No. I think his sympathies lie with the preterite, in this as in social
and political contexts.

> his references and allusion and
> command over his ideas and prose manifest this undeniably; sure, an average
> reader can get by with a reasonable knowledge of pop culture and the
> highlights of the Western literary canon, but it's also true that experts
> and specialists find their researches and expertise rewarded again and
> again in Pynchon studies. 

Your distinction between the "average reader" and "experts and
specialists" is exactly the false dichotomy I have been addressing.
Every "average reader" is an expert and specialist in their own right.
Mr Pynchon's texts are models of interdisciplinarity, so an architect or
theologian or musician or rocket scientist *can* bring their expertise
to the text. But what Mr Pynhcon also writes about is life, history,
society, and that is something where there are no experts and
specialists. We are all "general readers", doug, including the published
critics.

> His allusions draw us to historical and political
> situations with overtones that often harmonize surprisingly with the
> surface text, even when they are only echoes in the distance, or
> counterpoint, and sometimes those allusions pull us away from the novel
> entirely

If we are away from the novel entirely then where are we? We are in our
own sphere; our own political or religious or ethical affiliations are
to the fore. We are using the text to justify our own preconceptions and
assumptions. When are these "echoes" simply voices in our own heads?

> admittedly it can be difficult to draw the line between what
> Pynchon intends in his choice of character name or other allusions, but
> tracing out where they lead, well the proof is in the pudding so to speak.

There are no "proofs" with Mr Pynchon. I think your opening statement in
this post makes that clear. And if by proofs you refer to the
coincidence of the name Geli in the text of *GR* which "puts the
Katje-Pudding sex act in a Hitler context"; or the conclusion that
"Pynchon means Sphere to signify Thelonious Monk and his mistress, the
Baroness" in *V.*; well, these are not proofs at all but
interpretations, which must stand or fall as any other interpretation
does on the basis of a close reading of the text. It is my opinion that
neither of these interpretations can be sustained.

> You sound so certain about what Pynchon *can't be doing* so I pose a simple
> question:  how can you be so certain? Who set you up as the expert, the
> arbiter of what's acceptable or not in the way of interpreting Pynchon's
> writing?  
 
doug, you misread me. I am simply offering my readings and
interpretations.  

> And, I submit:  Pynchon is smarter even than you. His text sends
> you scurrying for the cover of your own received notions and hidebound
> interpretation schemes, and suggestions that there might be more going on
> than you can see in them produces these immediate, verbose diatribes.

> Hollander offers his readings for our delight. I've read all of his
> articles, and I've yet to see him seek to invalidate anybody else's opinion
> or reading

By concluding that readers who "lack the trained, or magic, eye" have
been misled he *is* claiming exclusive possession of textual
interpretation. He *is* attempting to invalidate alternate readings. In
his model there is a correct reading -- his "magic eye" approach, which
relies on discarding actual elements of Pynchon's text as instances
"misdirection" -- and then there are incorrect readings. I do not agree
with his interpretations and I do not agree with his model of reading.

> he simply offers another way to have fun with the text, see
> where it leads, and, more often than not (as do Dugdale, David Thoreen, and
> others who pay close attention to Pynchon's allusions), he comes up with
> surprising, interesting results (and you certainly don't see him on
> Pynchon-L talking trash about the way other critics read Pynchon,
> specifically I haven't seen him on Pynchon-L trashing your particular
> approach to reading Pynchon, but I have seen you, again and again, ridicule
> and insult his approach). 

doug, you misread me ...

> So what if his conclusions don't match your
> preconceptions? Live and let live. 

doug, it's a discussion-list.

> Personally, I don't buy your assertion
> of some special significance in the fact that  Slothrop's "apogee" (or was
> it Brenschluss?) falls precisely at the midpoint of this particular edition
> of the novel -- your interpretation by pagination falls apart when you see
> other authorized versions of GR (the Bantam paperback, the new Penguin
> edition, etc.) that have different pagination because of differing page
> sizes and fonts.

Fair enough. The pagination was retained for both the original US and UK
editions, however, and in reprint editions from the publishers with whom
Mr P had his original contract. But you are quite free to challenge my
reading on these grounds, and discard it. It's always the reader's
prerogative.

> But if you think Pynchon has calculated precisely where a
> certain bit of dialogue or action is going to fall in the overall layout of
> the book, more power to you. 

Yes, as you yourself have said in this very post: "He works his
manuscripts over for years, decades even. He writes in layers and
invites us to dig deep to understand what he might be saying."

> Opinions are like assholes, my old daddy says,
> everybody's got one.  Loosen up, dude. It's Pynchon's world and we're all
> just playing in it.