Pynchon's weaknesses

[Dave Monroe]

... not to prolong the argument here--and, keep in mind, Gravity's
Rainbow and The Crying of Lot 49, at LEAST, are among my favorite novels
ever, my two favorite novels ever, even, and Vineland and Mason and Dixon
are among the only books I've ever gone to any trouble to get and read as
soon as they hit the shelves (if I even waited that long), Pynchon at
WORST ties with Beckett as my favorite fiction writer (and I have to
mention SB only because he wrote so damn much more, even if it was
largely so damn much shorter)--but, well, plenty of (lesser or otherwise)
writers are the subject of  conferences, journals, websites, and other
assorted apparatuses of criticism and/or fandom (I mean, look up Ayn
Rand, fer chrissakes), plenty of writers are considered the best in the
English language ever (I'd shortlist, say, Conrad, James, Joyce,
Faulkner, Nabokov and others would go so far as to include Bellow or Roth
or Updike these days (fer chrisskes ...)), while plenty of critics simply
cannot understand the appeal of, abide by Pynchon, and, jeez, well, if
Nobel Prizes in Lit'rachure count for anything, well, Joyce never did get
his, yet who here has read Derek Wolcott or Pearl S. Buck or (to exapnd
beyond English) Haldor Laxness or Dario Fo or ... lately?  The point
being, well, so what?  I think it's perhaps such seeimgly uncritically
reproduced platitudes that are being referred to--and not entirely
wrongly--as "hagiography" here, and they're not particularly productive
in either reading the text(s) at hand or adavncing the cause of Thomas
Pynchon as a major, world-class, Nobel-worthy, whatever author.  Nor is
insulting those either less enthusiatic--or, perhaps, more realistic,
temperate, whatever, in their enthusiasm--about Pynchon and his texts.
I've no problem with your enthusiasm, Doug, I believe I share it, in a
world which has already dared to make the very great Claude Simon a Nobel
Laureate (Conducting Bodies was an absolutely mesmerizing boo to me,
though I believe the committe cited earlier works like The Grass), I
eagerly await the day Pynchon gets his (and I knew I shoulda put money on
Oe and Grass, but Fo? Szymborska? Heaney, I suppose, and I haven't read
Saramago ... who's teh Chinese novelist, Ba Jin?  Early odds there ...
though, alas, I suspect Simon's win means the Nobel committe will wash
its hands of Alain Robbe-Grillet now ...).  At any rate, I can understand
the reaction from some quarters here, but I see no reason for the insults
... that sound about right to anybody here?  let me know ...

Doug Millison wrote:

> Let me see if I've got this straight. Heaping praise and superlatives
> on Thomas Pynchon --- perennially short-listed for the Nobel Prize;
> in his lifetime the subject of conferences, an academic journal, web
> sites, a listserve discussion, a veritable library of books and
> monographs, European tours, and more, all devoted solely to his work;
> called by reputable critics the greatest living novelist writing in
> English and ranked by others with the best writers in English ever --
> somehow amounts to "hagiography," even when counterbalanced with
> nuanced discussion of the works (I refer you to MDMD, VLVL, and even
> some passages in the current ragtag excuse of a GRGR, if you doubt
> that the spectrum of Pynchon-L discussion about Pynchon's works
> ranges from negative to hagiographic). If that's true, then I'm quite
> happy to be included among the Pynchon-L hagiographers...especially
> when I see who is trying to score points by offering up hagiography,
> hagiographic, and hagiographer as insults in this context, and who's
> jumping on that bandwagon.
>
> Yes, I do keep forgetting that Pynchon-L, which to me does in some
> ways represent a virtual living room where people who share an
> interest in Pynchon and his writings can gather for conversation, to
> others is a professional wrestling ring only nasty for real.  This is
> a Pynchon-L conversation topic that predates any of the current crop
> of yahoos and trolls whose preferred method for attracting attention
> on Pynchon-L is the cyber-equivalent of -- to continue the
> scatological metaphor that seems to have captured TrollMalign's fancy
> -- dropping their drawers, pissing in the swimming pool, and making
> sure everybody's watching while they do it.
>
> As ever,
> Doug "Mr. Nanny" Millison
>
> Pre-emptive Solace (P.S.):  Malign, Morris, RJ, & etc., you're still
> able to post what you wish on Pynchon-L; this remains an unmoderated
> discussion.
>
> P.P.S. Ned Flanders or Homer Simpson?  Which do you want it to be?