SLSL Intro: poorly written?

[Tim Strzechowski]

Part of the problem when we use labels like "essay" and "novel" is the fact
that both labels have seemingly clear definitions, yet we know that isn't
always the case. Obviously, labels lose their significance as you delve
deeper into each one. When does a Hemingway short story stop being
journalism and start being fiction, for example?  Is _Finnegans Wake_ really
a novel?  Does Pirandello's _Six Characters in Search of an Author_ qualify
as tragedy or comedy?  (you get the idea)

In the strictest sense of the term "essay," Pynchon certainly takes a lot of
liberties with his Intro.  Part reads like confession, part reads like
socio-historic analysis, part like memoir, etc.  Within any given paragraph
(as you noted in your original post for this thread), he jumps from one,
say, genre to another.  Consequently, I don't see much difference between
the Intro and other works of imaginative literature like those of Faulkner
or Joyce. If anything, given the cross-pollenation of genres within its
pages, this seems precisely the type of "essay" the author of GR would have
written!

Since some readers may question the sincerity of the authorial point-of-view
in the Intro (as has been done), what's to say "confusing the reader" isn't
partly the purpose in this work?  Now, by confusion I don't mean to imply
the Intro engages the reader in the type of linguistic puzzles of Joyce, but
parts of the Intro leave one wondering if a writer as astute as P seems to
be could honestly slam a story like "Entropy" for the very reasons that some
of his later fiction actually succeeds.

I guess I'd need to see exactly where you find Pynchon "confusing the
reader" to better address the questions you raise and figure out if it's the
readers fault for said confusion.

Tim


Tyro:

> When writing a novel like GR, AA, FW, confusing the
> reader is part of the game.
>
> Essays are not novels. Pynchon does not set out to
> confuse the reader of the Introduction. But he does.
> How can we account for this confusion? Is it our
> fault?
> Or is the essay confusing? I think the essay is
> confusing. I don't think this is intentional. I think
> Pynchon's fictions are fabulous. GR is a great novel.
> But his essays are poorly written and confusing.
>