Gaddis and Pynchon

[Doug Millison]

At 10:25 AM -0700 8/22/02, s~Z wrote:
>>>>Reading Pynchon after GR seems to resemble, for some
>readers,  chasing that first ecstatic peak of many a
>youthful adventure, ever-elusive...the lesson may be,
>move on.<<<
>
>What kind of person needs the lesson to move on and why? What does the
>phrase 'move on' mean here?

It means whatever you want it to mean, Keith.  You're the reader (or
"writer", some theorists might say).

For me, it means to examine and if necessary let go of  attachments to the
past that may prevent me from experience this moment for what it is. That's
difficult to do, and I rarely manage to do that. But it's worth trying to
do.

In my experience, a few books have spoken to me at a deep level each time
I've come back to them sometimes at wide intervals.  Moby Dick, to name one
example -- I read it at 12, told a college professor about it at 18 (in
passing, William Buford, a great guy and once named a Yale Younger Poet)
and he said I should read it again when I was 40, which I did, good advice.
Other books haven't held up as well when I return to them.  But I enjoy
Pynchon each time I come back to his work, and something new unfolds.