more marginalizing

[Henry Musikar]

Poll time: do you read Pynchon purely for form/style, or do you also read
Pynchon because you believe that there are underlying content/beliefs that
you find agreeable?

Is this something new, or have there always been a significant number of
P-readers that appreciate Pynchon's style in spite of what others see as the
voicing of a belief system that is generally viewed as lib/rad?

As much as I have enjoyed the pleasures of the text, I am one of the
believers: I find Pynchon provocative, and insightful and, naive moi, I
believe that his beliefs happen to echo my own, which I find an altogether
different pleasure. And no, I don't believe that P-lit is a mirror or a
Rorsach test.

,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_

Keep Cool, but Care

Henry Musikar

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michel Ryckx" <michel.ryckx at freebel.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 2:33 PM
Subject: Re: more marginalizing


> barbara100 at jps.net wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > It's not a good critical position to have period.  Fiction, if it's any
good
> > at all, does and should instruct, teach and reveal.  Make of it what you
> > will, but don't say it's not there for the taking.
>
> Dear Barbara:
>
> If I may intrude your endless soliloquy: does one read in order to have a
> critical position?  I read because I like books.  And that's it.  I would
not
> know what that is, 'a critical position'  One may have, of course, an
opinion.
> If a novel teaches me something, it is usually that my own prejudices, of
which
> I'm trying to be aware of, are confirmed or not.
>
> Imagine you are right: what would you learn from a very good writer like
> Louis-Ferdinand Céline, who was a bitter man, antisemite, sympathising
with the
> Nazis?  A writer whose novels are one long scream, who writes about his
hate
> for humanity, only interrupted by three little points?  But what a style.
What
> a literary tour de force.  I have completely forgotten the first part of
Simone
> de Beauvoir's autobiograpy, ma'am, called 'Mémoires d'une jeune fille
dorée'.
> Only her description of the reception of 'Voyage au bout de la Nuit' in
the 30s
> I remember: le tout Paris was dazzled.  And rightly so.
>
> You may occasionally read fiction of which you think: 'Yes, that is it'.
But
> did a novel ever change your opinion on something?  You think 'that is it'
> because you already thought that way.  And somebody just found the right
words.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Michel
> "naive European"
>
>
>
>