A substantial group reading of V

[MalignD at aol.com]

<It may be worth mentioning that, unless Malign suffers from the  wetbrain 
syndrome he's talked about frequently on the P-list with  regard to some 
writers who have been mentioned as favorites of one or  another of us, he 
would remember the name that was offered to him,  along with reasons why some 
P-listers judged Malign and the previous  poster to be identical. >>

Taking the "blunt knife" to M&D?  And, I guess, twisting down and to the 
right for maximum pain and a ghastly scar.   

Separate from what Millison and "some P-listers" judged, I've not posted 
under this other name that Millison can't seem to bring himself to utter or 
write.  I don't think he thinks I'm Matthew Wiener (I'm not); my guess is he 
thinks I'm Mittelwerk, who was posting on the list when I first joined, who 
was often nasty, just as often amusing, and was able to send Millison round 
the bend with remarkable alacrity.  Other than his apparently finding 
Millison a pompous, insufferable, gasbag and a human kick-me sign, I find 
little similarity, Mittlewerk to me. 

As to hagiography and Millison's and, I guess, others' objections to anything 
other than encomiums being tossed TP's way--

GR was an extraordinary and monumental work that I esteem as greatly, I 
think, as anyone who posts here.  Its greatness has not diminished at all 
with time, to the contrary.  However, it set up expectations around Pynchon 
that, seventeen(!) years later, were not met (I think most of us would agree) 
by Vineland; Mason & Dixon, however, particularly after rumors of a 
monumental civil war novel, seemed the sort of large-scope, epic project that 
might fulfill twenty-five years of waiting.

I read the M&D with much hope and excitement, much of it well-placed.  Its 
scope is broad and deep; it's full of ideas, it's eccentric, it's 
intelligently considered, it speaks from various voices and styles.  But, in 
the end, it felt, and still feels to me, if not quite a total failure, not a 
success either.  

The decision to write a mock-historical novel seems ill-conceived, dated, 
cumbersome, and offers little in recompense.  The mock-eighteenth century 
prose and prosody is well-rendered, but it's not musical.  It didn't delight 
or thrill or drive me with the desire for more.  The paragraph on page 345 
that begins "Does Britannia, when she sleeps, dream?"  is a passage the 
beauty of which is beyond the reach of all but small handful of writers.  But 
it's the only such passage that stuck with me in the entire book.  There are 
probably others;  but there are hundreds such in GR, not just beautiful in 
the way that that passage is beautiful, but that wring beauty from places 
(like science) where few other writers, if any, could find it.  The framing 
device with Cherrycoke and those children quickly became tiresome and 
annoying; the humor so-called--mechanical French ducks and colonial women 
speaking like valley girls--brought the occasional grin, no more.  In the 
end, I felt myself wondering why, given the ingredients, the book didn't 
soar.  My guess was it took too long aborning and whatever energy might have 
driven the initial conception, flagged over time, and died by the time the 
book was complete.

Finally, given what it strives to be, I think M&D fails.  To be sure, it's a 
failure few writers have the talent even to attempt, but I think I am judging 
it on the terms it deserves.

This doesn't seem or feel to me the sort of eccentric opinion where one 
dislikes-- but can see what others will like in--a film, book, play, 
whatever, an opinion one knows will run against the popular position.  
Rather, I'm surprised such isn't the general consensus of M&D.  That it isn't 
(at least on this list) and that some seem to find the expression of such an 
opinion out of bounds, leads me to think, as I do, that the desire for M&D to 
be great, the worthy shelfmate of GR blinds.  Or the belief that Pynchon is a 
great writer; therefore, anything he writes is, ipso facto, great, does the 
same.

Such is what I mean by hagiography and, with such sentiments do I twist the 
blunt knife.