Walk your way

[Doug Millison]

At 4:49 PM +1100 8/9/02, jbor set up and knocked down straw men right and left:

>Doug made a distinction between college sophomores and readers who do "get
>it"

Nope, I said even college sophomores can "get it" and that some arrogant
critics think they know P's texts better than other readers, perhaps even
better than P himself.  If I didn't say specifically, I do now observe that
jbor is one of the critics, here on the P-list, who routinely judges one
reading better than another, for reasons which remain obscure, all the
while applying the same techniques (select a bit of text and use it to prop
up a prejudice) that are common to this discussion.


>What I strongly disagree with is the argument that Pynchon wants his texts
>to be incomprehensible,


If you  "strongly disagree" why do you -- and nobody else -- keep raising
this issue?  I assume Pynchon wants to be read and enjoyed, otherwise I'm
at a loss to explain his 50+ year career writing and publishing stories,
novels, and the occasional essay.


>that he is deliberately dancing away "several steps
>ahead of his readers",


"Deliberately" and "dancing away" are  jbor's words-- "necessarily" is
mine.  If jbor thinks he can know as much about P's texts as Pynchon knows,
that's fine, but I think jbor is deluded in that belief.  That's not to say
that  jbor's interpretations aren't interesting --occasionally they are.


>At the very least I think we can
>assume that Pynchon intended for his novels to be published, to be read, and
>for his readers to engage in acts of interpretation. It strikes me as quite
>odd that anyone would have a problem with that.

Me too -- odd indeed.  See above.