COL49: The beginning is the beginning is the end

[MalignD at aol.com]

<<I can credit some "sneaker scuffing", not entirely in the service of 
sincere self deprecation, but rather in yet another attempt to throw the 
"deconstructing" critic a distracting morsel.....those words may, in fact, 
reveal nothing about what 
Pynchon REALLY feels about them - any such revelation would be very much out 
of character...amusing himself at the expense of the reader - well, that's 
not entirely inconsistent....>>

I'm afraid this is for me no more persuasive than Millison's shifting layers 
of multidimensional irony and close to saying "anything's possible." 

I think it wise to follow Occam's advice and, real evidence to the contrary, 
assume that Pynchon is simply calling a collection of not-so-great stories 
not so great.