slaggin' Moore, Gaddis, Franzen and DeLillo pre-Nobel

[jbor]

Paul wrote:

>> 
>> Steven Moore, who was ridiculed in the essay by Franzen, was quite positive
>> about the piece.
>> 
>> 
> Steven Moore is a good sport. Franzen was rather consdescending to Moore
> but not quite to the extent he was to other Gaddisites. Acknowledged
> that Moore's work was intelligent. For nonGaddis readers, Moore is to
> The Recognitions as Steven Weisenburger is to Gravity's Rainbow.  They
> bridge the gaps in  readers' background information without throwing in
> an excess amount of interpretation. Two extremely useful people I think.
> 


And he wasn't exactly ridiculed either; Franzen referred to Steve as "a
Gaddis scholar whose criticism is a model of clarity and intelligent
advocacy". Compared to Joe Tabbi and Greg Comnes who copped far more of a
shellacking, as you note, Franzen's remarks about Moore were quite
respectful. And Steve himself was much more "positive" about the Sven
Birkerts review of Gaddis's new books in the NYBR and the review of _Agape
Agape_ in _Publisher's Weekly_ than he was about the Franzen _New Yorker_
piece.

I agree that Franzen's appreciation of Gaddis's oeuvre was comprehensive and
insightful. Franzen documents his admiration for _The Recognitions_ in no
uncertain terms. And even though the main conceit of the article is that he
wasn't able to finish _J R_ he does let it drop that he began reading it
twice, and finished most of it the second time around.


Murthy wrote:

> Agree. Don't hate me because I have a list of Delillo books I never
> finished :-). Doesn't mean I don't like Delillo or White Noise, I swear.

I think _White Noise_ is probably *the* campus novel of the 1980s, and that
_Libra_ is the consummate fictional representation of the JFK assassination.
_The Names_ is hugely scary and underrated, and is perhaps the most relevant
of DeLillo's novels vis à vis current world events (though they're all
prescient in some respects), perhaps even of any novel. _Running Game_ is
pretty good also, and the ending is stunning. As for the rest, they all have
their moments but they're patchy at best: _Underworld_ is all over the place
and way too long. _Ratner's Star_ is like early Vonnegut but overblown and
poorly done. _Great Jones Street_ is a no-brainer, and _Mao II_ doesn't
really work. I'm surprised that Pynchon chose to offer a blurb for it, but
it might have been his way of distancing himself from Bill Gray, DeLillo's
central character in that novel.

best