Problems of Paranoia [...]

[jbor]

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>From: 
>
> 
> Exactly. Pynchon the writer is unavoidable, but Pynchon the man stays
> out of the way, letting the reader engage him at the interface of words
> on paper. He thwarts the effort to explain away something by saying,
> like, Oh yeah, that happened to him in 4th grade, which doesn't mean
> anything or explain why it's alluded to in the text, or indeed what it
> means if you didn't know that bit of biography. In contrast, so much of
> James Joyce does in fact refer back to the man who wrote it. It doesn't
> have to, but it is testament to Joyce's attitude towards his art.
>
> Both of them make reading a very participatory and satisfying activity.
> My metaphors of writer's torment and reader's paranoia informing their
> respective texts is awfully simplistic, but the nonpresence of Pynchon
> the man is testament to Pynchon's attitude towards _his_ art.

Yes -- it's one of things which separates the Modernist self-perceived
"artist-genius" who places her or himself above the reader, from the
postmodernist "artist-schmo" who places himself in there with "you".

best