SLSL Intro: poorly written?

[John Bailey]

<Mr T Tortoise wrote>

>I think we are making progress. But if I'm
>over-posting or becoming a bore, I'll drop it.
>
>Nevertheless, as far as I'm concerned those two
>sentences remain a mystery to us all.

<snipadeedooda>

>I'm bothered by the fact that Pynchon sandwiches  this
>"soapboxing" speculation between his admission of
>guilt and his apology.

I agree with this, it is troubling, and I think you've hit some very good 
points in attempting to locate the real problem with TRP's writing in the 
Intro, which originally I didn't think problematic at all.

But I also think you can extend this issue to a lot of his work. TRP is all 
over the shop most of the time. He admits somewhere (maybe on of those 
letters) that he thinks he's no good at plotting, and I certainly agree. 
It's also obvious in the stories and novels that constructing a plot is not 
his strongest suit. He mentions elsewhere that he wishes he was a poet, or a 
film critic. Both of these things also fit well with what he writes.

But an essayist? Where do these non-fiction pieces come from? They leap 
around from topic to topic, dropping references to heaps of things which 
don't get explored fully. The non-fiction is like the fiction in this way, 
impressive in the breadth before anything else. I'm not taking issue with 
this, as it's sort of a Pynchon trademark, but there are moments, like the 
one in question, where the political ramifications of this tactic become a 
worry. I guess, yes, if you are familiar with his style you can see past the 
surface (and you're not wrong Mr Monroe, that's another Pynchonesque 
trademark, the suggestion of something beneath the surface of everything)...

Pynchon's non-fiction is more op.ed than crit.theory. His intro is not 
lit.crit and would get a low mark if graded as such. But as newspaper or 
magazine copy, both the Intro and the other non-fiction work is just fine, 
some of it very good in fact. In the opinion of this correspondent.

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