Pynchon's Interview

[Terrance]

Dave Monroe wrote:
> 
> Beyond some exhibition catalogues, the only books I
> brought with me are V. and a Norton Critical ed. of
> The Waste Land.  This is no doubt of a piece with
> calls to change the national anthem to something
> easier to sing.  No Protestant Work Ethic there, and
> freedom, as in, "O'er the land of the free," is
> something continuously to be struggled for, dammit.
> Pynchon and Eliot and Joyce and James and Chaucer and
> Milton and Shakespeare and ... are just too hard to
> read, a nation whines.  The Dumyazization of America

And if the Dean of your University, the Chair of your department, most
importantly, the Registrar, tells you that your syllabus is too long,
too many books, too many papers to write, too difficult?

Students are busy people, they have kids and grandchildren, two jobs....
They never got a good education and they don't read. 
But I don't play that. And I don't give incompletes.