Old Pynchon mention

[Paul Mackin]

Interesting. "Pynchon's cabalistic doctrine of sado-anarchism" as a negative
theology. Had just being reading Barbara's post celebrating cum (come)
sliding down mucous surfaces and pondering her (assume Barbara is a girl's
name and not another terrorist organization) questioning of whether
p-listers by and large even understand P the least little bit. Then I
thought to the several listers who have mentioned turning to Gravity's
Rainbow for solice in these traumatic times and decided that they do in fact
truly understand. How like they are to my evangelical Christian friends who
tell of  looking forward to the coming Sunday which can be devoted to
hearing the word of the Lord.

Love the p-list.

        P.
----- Original Message -----
From: <MalignD at aol.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 10:43 AM
Subject: Old Pynchon mention


> Quite by chance, I came upon this somewhat unlikely comparison of Roth and
> Pynchon, made by Harold Bloom in 1985 in a review of Zuckerman Bound, a
> single volume comprising the novels, The Ghost Writer, Zuckerman Unbound,
The
> Anatomy Lesson, and The Prague Orgy.
>
> "Zuckerman Bound" merits something reasonably close to the highest level
of
> esthetic praise for tragicomedy, partly because as a formal totality it
> becomes much more than the sum of its parts. Those parts are surprisingly
> diverse: "The Ghost Writer" is a Jamesian parable of fictional influence,
> economical and shapely, beautifully modulated, while "Zuckerman Unbound"
is
> more characteristically Rothian, being freer in form and more joyously
> expressionistic in its diction. "The Anatomy Lesson" is a farce bordering
on
> fantasy, closer in mode and spirit to Nathanael West than is anything else
by
> Roth. With "The Prague Orgy," Roth has transcended himself, or perhaps
shown
> himself and others that, being just past 50, he has scarcely begun to
display
> his powers. I have read nothing else in recent American fiction that
rivals
> Thomas Pynchon in "The Crying of Lot 49" and episodes like the story of
Bryon
> the light bulb in the same author's "Gravity's Rainbow." "The Prague Orgy"
is
> of that disturbing eminence: obscenely outrageous and yet brilliantly
> reflective of a paranoid reality that has become universal. B UT the
Rothian
> difference from Nathanael West and Thomas Pynchon also should be
emphasized.
> Roth paradoxically is still engaged in moral prophecy; he continues to be
> outraged by the outrageous - in societies, others and himself. There is in
> him nothing of West's gnostic preference for the posture of the satanic
> editor, Shrike, in "Miss Lonelyhearts," or of Pynchon's cabalistic
doctrine
> of sado-anarchism. Roth's negative exuberance is not in the service of a
> negative theology, but intimates instead a nostalgia for the morality once
> engendered by the Jewish normative tradition."