SLSL Intro "It Had to Do with Language"

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

Thanks for what you've done already, Dave.

One thing that has always puzzled me a bit is:
why doesn't TRP bring up _The Recognitions_ here?

Robert Coover for one has named Bellow and Gaddis
the two big influences of mid-50s.

And it is arguably easier to see the presence of
_TR_ in _V._ than in any of Coover's books.

Anxiety of influence?


Heikki

On Fri, 1 Nov 2002, Dave Monroe wrote:

>    "At the simplest level, it had to do with language.
>  We were encouraged from mnay directions--Kerouac and
> the Beat writers, the diction of Saul Bellow in The
> Adventures of Augie March, emerging voices like those
> of Herbert Gold and Philip Roth--to see how at least
> two very distinct kinds of English could be allowed in
> fiction to coexist.  Allowed!  It was actually OK to
> write like this!  Who knew?  The effect was exciting,
> liberating, strongly positive.  It was not a case of
> either/or, but an expansion of possibilities." (SL,
> "Intro," p. 7)
>