SLSL Intro "Chicago School"

[pynchonoid]

Keith:
> Are there authors who speak of lit-crit as an
>influence in their 
>writing?

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com>:
> Pynchon certainly does: "The conflict in those days
> (i.e. in the mid-late
> '50s, when Pynchon was in and out of college and
> beginning to get a feel for
> current literary trends and critical theory


...which TRP doesn't mention at all, "critical theory"
that is, which is interpolated here, parenthetically,
into Pynchon's text...I agree with Keith's later post:

>I see a reference to lit-crit, and vague general
>comments. Nothing 
>about its
>*influence on his development as a writer* except in
>the most 
>superficial
>way.

...and I agree with what Keith said about multiple
perspectives, too, which is always the way I read
Pynchon, both/and/more, not either/or....

jbor:
 >as well
> as student politics)

...TRP calls himself an "unpolitical '50s student" in
this Intro...if the Intro is as "straightforward"as
has been suggested, why not just take Pynchon at his
word?  If he's disguidsing what his politics were when
he was a college student, then the essay is hardly
"straightforward." I find it hard to believe he was
"unpolitical" in the '50s, I think he was developing a
political view, nor do I think he was any kind of
"student radical" -- wasn't it JS who talked about TRP
going to confession and wondering what on earth TRP
might have to confess?  

jbor, quoting TRP:
> was, like most everything else, muted. In its
> literary version it shaped up
> as traditional vs. Beat fiction. Although, far away,
> one of theatres of
> action we kept hearing about was at the University
> of Chicago. There was a
> "Chicago School" of literary criticism, for example,
> which had a lot of
> people's attention and respect. ... there had been a
> shakeup at the _Chicago
> Review_ which resulted in the Beat-oriented _Big
> Table_ magazine. "What
> happened at Chicago" became shorthand for some
> unimaginable subversive
> threat.


...and, not surprisingly, TRP does not go on to speak
of this "'Chicago School' of literary criticism" as an
influence on his writing -- it's the politics, the
oppression of "subversion" that seems to have
impressed him about the Chicago incicdent; later TRP
says it was the "nonverbal" American experience, not
critical theory,that he goes on to credit for his
progress as a writer.  TRP names specific authors
whose works and whose voices showed him that the way
he wanted to write might work.  Again, if the essay is
"straightforward" no need to dig so deep to uncover
what TRP is really saying. Of course it may be that
literary theory did have a big influence on his
writing and he doesn't want to acknowledge that, so he
misdirects the reader with these other explanations,
but that wouldn't be "straightforward" would it....

re Big Table:
http://www.usps.com/judicial/1959deci/1-150.htm
" [...] The first article in the publication starts at
page 7 and is entitled "Old Angel Midnight" by Jack
Kerouac. Beginning at page 43 is an article entitled
"Further Sorrows of Priapus" by Edward Dahlberg.
Following this, beginning at page 63 is a poem by
Edward Dahlberg entitled "The Garment of Ra." Next,
beginning on page 79 is an item entitled "Ten Episodes
>From Naked Lunch " by William S. Burroughs. The last
contributor in the publication is Gregory Corso whose
three poems entitled "Power," "Army," and "Police"
appear at pages 138 thru 152. [...] The next witness
for the Mailer was Mr. Hoke Norris, who is a literary
critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, a newspaper of
general circulation in the city of Chicago. Mr. Norris
testified that in his view the contents of Big Table 1
are representative of a serious, valid international
literary movement. He stated that it was his opinion
that the writers Corso, Kerouac and Burroughs are
serious writers and that their works are of some
social importance. Mr. Norris indicated that in his
opinion these writers feel that they have something to
say, and that they want to say it as effectively as
possible. With respect to the four-letter words which
are used in the articles by Burroughs and Kerouac, Mr.
Norris testified that he thought they were germane to
the serious purposes of these writers. He said that it
would be ridiculous in the context of these works to
substitute euphemistic synonyms in place of the
four-letter words. [...] "

....he controversy Pynchon refers to seems to have
less to do with critical theory than it does with
censorship and rebellion against same....

somebody:
>Count the poets that are critics and you can fill a
>library. 

Pynchon among them?

I like the way this discussion is unfolding, so far,
lots of different ways to read this Intro, confirming,
imo, that part of the Intro's critical reception thta
included a healthy dose of skepticism about what
Pynchon might really be doing with this little essay.

I liked "A Couple-Three Bonzos: 'Introduction,' Slow
Learner and 1984" when it appeared in PN (wrote about
it on Pynchon-L, at the time), too, taking the notion
of reading this intro as another story in the SL
collection, working that up into an essay, another
perspective published for consideration among the
community of Pynchon scholars...


Terry Reilly, "A Couple-Three Bonzos: 'Introduction,'
Slow
Learner and 1984," Pynchon Notes 44-45 (Spring-Fall
1999), pp. 5-13 


"You are a slow learner, Winston" said O'Brien
gently. 
http://home.iae.nl/users/sceav/hgengels/textand48.htm


Thanks for digging that up, Dave. 






=====
<http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/>

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos
http://launch.yahoo.com/u2