Gaddis and Pynchon

[Doug Millison]

>What reader picks up and reads a book without expectation?

Of course, and  expectations are unique to the individual, based on past
experience with the author, the buzz re this book, etc., the quality of the
experience in general that the person enjoys (or not) during the period in
which she reads the novel, etc.  Dismissal of a book for having failed to
live up to "expectations" will also result from a similarly complex web of
personal reasons, motives, environmental factors, etc. There is no
objective standard to judge literary value, comparing novels is, in fact,
like comparing apples and oranges, because each novel, and each reader, is
unique -- no more than personal opinions.  Consider the experience of
reading a good book at different stages of one's life:  reading Moby Dick
as a boy of 12 and as a man of 50, or reading GR in 1973 in the library of
Camp Howze, ROK, 6 clicks south of Panmumjon and reading GR in 2002 in a
comfortable house overlooking the San Francisco Bay....apples and oranges.




Doug Millison
http://www.Online-Journalist.com
http://dougday.blogspot.com/
http://pynchonoid.blogspot.com/