conspiratorial thotz

[Lycidas at worldnet.att.net]

Paul Mackin wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 31 Jan 2000 DudiousMax at aol.com wrote:
> > I expect more of you, Paul.  And I expect an acknowledgement, you
> > naughty kitten.
> 
> What is it you expect? Agreement? Why put the ideas out for discussion if
> they're already cast in cement. Remember what Tom Hayden said back in
> Newark--when the cement dries you can't crack it with a pick. Some of us
> have taken the trouble to read your stuff and comment on it. I would think
> some of what's been said might help in composing your paper. There are
> always more angles to consider than one might first think.
> 
> Nobody is objecting to anything P says about government propaganda against
> marajuana, sex, violence or anything else. The marajuana comments are a
> total non sequitur. It's what YOU were saying that I was critiquing. It
> was meant to be constructive believe it or not.
> 
>                 P.


Paul's critique, as usual,  sounded very constructive to me.
Can't say that for some of the other comments on this
thread. Why smash a guy for putting out his reading of GR?
If the guy is fixed and intolerant of criticism and closed
to other readings, well we know what to do, ignore him and
he'll go away. But Hollander has given us his take. Isn't
that what people here advocate? I've read the stuff. It's
more independent ("reader response") than 99% of the all the
other stuff I have read, and although I don't have and have
never read "Pynchon-Notes," I've read lots. Hollander does
not, as is the fashion, engage in the battle of the books.
You don't need to read 20 other guys to see if he is using
or abusing them faithfully and judiciously.  Now, some say
it's privileged or somehow flies in the face of Pynchon's
elect and preterite issues. OK, name an approach that
doesn't. Doesn't McHale talk of the "conditioned reader" and
"(mis)reading Pynchon"? Yes, the conditioned reader is not
something I care for on all sorts of levels, the first one
being that I don't think it's the case, but McHale's books
have several defenders on this list who smash Hollander for
his Elitism. Now, I love both of the McHale books I've read.
I've recommended them here several times. I think this idea
that Pynchon's elect/preterite (and we can argue about what
that means until the cows come home) can be applied to
readers and writers on an internet list or to scholars or
reviewers or students writing papers for classes or
dissertations, is a bunch of crap. 

THE END

And in the end,
the love you take,
is equal to the love
that you make