Gaddis and Pynchon

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Toby G Levy" <tobylevy at juno.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 18, 2002 10:44 PM
Subject: Re: Gaddis and Pynchon


> Back in the early days of Pynchon criticism it was thought that Pynchon
> must have read the Recognitions while in college and that Pynchon used
> some of Gaddis's stylistic devices from the many "crowd scenes" set in
> bars in The Recognitions when he wrote his own "crowd scenes" set at
> private parties in V.  I thought back then that this was weak criticism,
> and as much as I loved the Recognitions when I read it in the 60s, I
> never thought that Gaddis could carry Pynchon's pocket protector.
>
> The books that followed The Recognitions, in my most humble opinion,
> varied between weak to unreadable.  Whereas the novels that followed V.
> varied between amazing and absolutely incredible.
>
> Toby
>

I dare to disagree about the quality of "A Frolic of His Own" and "JR" which
I both consider as masterpieces. "Carpenter's Gothic" I had to read a second
time before I really liked it.

Gaddis himself has admitted that he has read only "little" of Pynchon, and
vice versa -- we simply don't know, but from all the blurbs P. has written
for other authors (for example the introduction to Dodge's "Stone Junction")
we can take for sure that he reads a lot and I believe that he has read the
later Gaddis too.

Otto


__________________________________________________________________

Gesendet von Yahoo! Mail - http://mail.yahoo.de
Möchten Sie mit einem Gruß antworten? http://grusskarten.yahoo.de