John Barth Vs. Pynchon

[Calaman, William]

Richard Romeo wrote:  I did like very much The Sot-Weed
Factor but I don't believe it has  the richness of
M&D--Barth has admitted to culling material from an
> encyclopedia for background.  Who can guess how much Mr. Pynchon digested
> over the years for M&D.
> 
> Rich


I don't like this yankees mets yankees mets, Tommy Agee dies
yesterday btw, but Sot-Weeds as good as they get for me.
Great novel!

I don't think it's yankees mets, etc., though I'm always up for a good
baseball chat (see below). yankees/mets is by nature a rivalry,
barth/pynchon is not (or doesn't have to be); and the point is a good one --
M&D is a novel one can revisit time and again and still be stimulated and
moved by it. Sot Weed is a fine novel, but it, like much of Barth's work,
relies perhaps a bit too much on artifice than on art. All of which leads me
to a point I've been wondering about for some time: now that virtually
everyone is wired are we going to see a proliferation of encyclopedic
novels, chock full of information with the author ingeniously finding ways
to make square factoids fit into round narratives? The temptation -- with
all of that information literally at your fingertips -- must be enormous for
a fledgling writer. Writing the big book used to be a different kind of
challenge; today the greater challenge is to write a work of significant
scope while exercising enough restraint to leave out the non-essential. 

Thanks to Rich Romeo for the advance word on the new DeLillo. I agree that
Underworld is a magnificent work, having achieved for the second half of the
20th century what Dos Passos did for the first half (this is a paraphrase of
Joan Mellon's critique). But if Rich's early take forebodes a cool reception
for the Body Artist it raises another question for discussion (and perhaps
you can phrase it better than I have): To what extent does the writer suffer
the anxiety of his/her own influence once one work achieves the stature of
contemporary masterpiece?

I told Paul Mackin off-list that I had not read "Whole Sick Crew" in this
new context (i.e., "whole" and "sick" as antonyms), but doing so invites one
to a new take on V. What I forgot to tell him is that I once made an effort
to read every article about this novel I could lay my hands on, and my
memory of digesting all that lit-crit is that this point had not been
brought up before. So kudos for that.

June 23, 1971, Rick Wise of the last-place Philadelphia Phillies gives one
of the all-time great (and since then largely forgotten) performances in
baseball history. He no-hits the vaunted Big Red Machine (reigning NL
champions) in Riverfront Stadium, allowing only a walk to Davey Concepcion.
In the course of twirling (don't you just love that word?) a masterpiece
Wise also belts two home runs and a double. Unprecedented display of
pitching mastery and offensive clout. Five days later, Monday, June 28,
1971, Wise takes the mound against the Mets; the Philadelphia fans are giddy
with the anticipation that one of their hapless 25 will on this night make
baseball history with a second straight no-no. First batter, first pitch:
Tommie Agee lines a single up the middle that nearly decapitates Wise and
trots down to first with such easy confidence as if to say, "stick that in
your Johnny Vandemeer fantasy". I will never forget it.