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

[jbor]

Sorry, s/b "NYTBR" and "_Running Dog_".

best


on 11/11/02 9:34 AM, jbor at jbor at bigpond.com wrote:

> 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
> 
> 
>