SLSL Intro: "if...I were...him"

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In a message dated 11/2/2002 9:57:50 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
peterpinguid at cluemail.com writes:


> So far, I am finding the introduction a bit precious. Am having
> difficulty finishing it. Anyone else?
> 
> 

The first time I read it, also on the floor of a chain bookstore, yes-
precious and affected. The second time around I was annoyed at
the narrator: if the stories suck, let them suck on their own, don't
make it worse by apologizing for them, or even more annoying-
trying to con me into excusing their croppiness. Even the title 
bothered me: Slow Learner, self-deprecating from the git-go.

And this from the author who had framed the sixties, made that 
period at least somewhat comprehensible, by filling in the context 
that preceded those years, from a sixties point of view.

It all seemed so gauche.

It's only lately that it occurred to me one reason the Intro
is hard to swallow is that maybe it's just Pynchon being open, 
and, well, sincere. It disarmed me, at first, to hear the great mystery 
man, who had had such an impact on me, come out and so 
matter-of-factly discuss the flaws in his technique. Is this what
he's really like? I asked myself.

One wonders how this narrator would appraise the Katje/Pudding
communion scene in GR. Perhaps that's what he intends for us to 
wonder. How did he get from here to there?

respectfully
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