Problems of Paranoia [...]

[Paul Mackin]

Interesting go around. Is it then a credit to P that he doesn't as a rule write
about the artist's life or artistic struggle? His artists are likely to be
presented as jokes, as in the WSC.  Except he seems to make an exception in
the case of Black jazz players.  Anyway, good discussion.

			P
 
On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, you wrote:
> ----------
> >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