SLSL Intro A Couple-Three Bonzos

[calbert at hslboxmaster.com]

To:MalignD at aol.com
CC:
BCC:
Subject:Re: (Fwd) Re: SLSL Intro A Couple-Three Bonzos

Ok, I must confess...........I steered well clear of the mail box for a
while......I'm in way over my head......


But I'll tuck my entrails back into my viscera and buck up....

MalignD:

"My short answer is that your argument has more to say about Nabokov and 
Lermontov (who sounds a little like a less playful Philip Roth) than about 
Pynchon."

Without question. My effort to tie L to P through N is strained. I am
guilty of trying to "gussie up" the pedestrian idea that there exists a
long standing tradition among "auteurs" to disguise their participation in
their works. In isolation, it offers little to my "case". I don't think
anyone doubts that Pynchon perpetuates the tradition.

THat stipulated however, I continue to believe that 

a) this is a SEMINAL concern to Nabokov........it is the focus of his intro
to Hero of Our Time

b) Pynchon's version of this virus carries a distinguished provenance - its
DNA clearly "attributable"

"One might as easily use that as a reason to be forthcoming:  with time, he 
has grown less apprehensive, more comfortable with opening up, was eager to 
grab the opportunity."

Again, I may simply be ignorant of any other concurrent symptoms of this at
the time of the publication of SL, or thereafter, for that matter. But I
understand that his non-fiction contributions don't seem to appear in a
particular time "tranche"....no "pattern" to the ecdysiast
pathology.....except perhaps one......

I am struck by Pynchon's use of "we" in the piece, and note that it also
appears in his intro to Been Down......It is not that these pieces are
entirely bereft of "I", but he is pretty rare...Occam would suggest that he
is speaking "generationally" - which seems out of character for someone who
seems so intent on distancing himself from any such "crowd" - is this
possibly a masquerading device which allows P to fulfill his obligations to
his publisher while continuing to "chest" his cards?

"  One can argue one as easily as the other.  But, taking 
your point, why say anything then?"

Here I go with the "ca-ching" school. My guess is that he probably needed
the "titty flash"  bonus....

That said, however, I DO believe that P is sincere at a certain level of
this. The commentary on the stories can really be taken straight up - the
"advice to young scribblers" rings true - but with the qualification that
he really doesn't offer much beyond what pretty much any writing instructor
would tell his intro class - it reads a little like Barzun lite.... 

" Why write an Introduction?  And, having 
decided to do so, what gain in privacy making misleading statements?  How
is 
his privacy  protected?  Misleading statements, furthermore, that his
readers 
can't know are misleading.  A rather mean-spirited bit of business, no?"

I don't know that I would go as far as "misleading" - I think "obscuring"
is the extent of his purpose. He will show you some of the wires and
armatures of his stories, but I find these revelations far from
"autobiographically" revealing. Does he have nothing good to say about a
set of stories that at the very least can be described as REMARKABLY
PRECOCIOUS? Would not such postive commentary also elucidate?

Upon re-reading it yesterday, I was about to leap foursquare into your
camp, when I came to the

"Somwhere I had come up with the notion that one's personal life had
nothing to do with fiction, when the truth, AS EVERYONE KNOWS, is nearly
the direct opposite."

There is something about Pynchon elaborating "eternal verities" about a
matter as frought with ambiguity as communication which strikes a false
note. In fact, the only element of the piece which I find SEMINAL for its
"currency" is this keystone:

"It may yet turn out that racial differences are not as basic as questions
of money and power, but have served those who deplore them most, in keeping
us divided and so relatively poor and powerless."

This is pretty strong stuff for someone held by many to be some kind of
bleeding heart......

There is, about the piece, an undenaible quality of "intimacy", but I
cannot divorce this from the notion of "device"....and I don't think it is
to endow Pynchon with an extraordinary genius to suggest that it is part of
the "stratagem".

"As I mentioned to you offlist, I find comparisons to Nabokov's fictional 
characters--John Ray, Charles Kinbote--not apt.  There's an entire book of 
Nabokov's opinions on his own writing and other things (Strong Opinions), 
which is far more analogous to TP's Intro than are Nabokov's fictional 
characters, devices, and strategies, not that I think necessarily that what 
is true in one case is true in the other (I'm not saying Strong Opinions is 
TP's model, or a strictly parallel case, in other words)."

Can't speak for Ray, yet......It is the height of presumption for me to
enlist Nabokov on the basis of my skinny experience. I should have limited
my observations to the plainly obvious - Kinbote as intermediary "device"
and whether or not this finds analogy in the TRP of the SL "intro". 

But that is all your fault, MalignD.........You could have steered me to
Strong Opinions some weeks ago, when I asked you for supporting material on
Nabokov and PF....Consider the amount of confusion you could have spared
me, and the pain you could have spared yourself and the list - and wallow
in that shame for a while.....

But let me once again go on record with my appreciation of your
determination to discipline discourse here.........and your hesitation to
pour pitch into the wounds you so gently inflict on this participant....

badger writes:

"I wonder if his being sincere is the joke - hidden in plain sight, so to 
speak."

I think "hidden" is the operative concept here.......if so, it would be
safe to say that the "truth" must be "gleaned" and that it is not
transparent.....

"  Charles v. MalignD -- keep going, this could get fun...'

Somewhere in the OED is the perfect term to describe those poisonous little
twits you see circling around an altercation yelling "Fight.....Fight!"
Their enthusiasm is usually in inverse proportion to the competitiveness of
the conflict......there is good reason why harp seal pups never stage an
upset of an Orca - have you tried to wield a slingshot with a set of
flippers?

But as my first golf pro suggested -

" It ain't fun unless someone is bleeding."

Should I use waxed or unwaxed floss to stich up the abdominal window?

love,
cfa  


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