How people read the Pyncher (was Re: Charles Hollander's Essay)

[calbert at hslboxmaster.com]

This should stir up some xit..........I found the JFk hypothesis less
convincing than Hollander's "disinherited" thesis as presented in the
Cornell Alumni Mag article. THe former suffers, in my opinion, from the
effort to seek a "definitive key" in a work which, taken as a whole, seems
to assume as a fundamental premise that its is the riddle, not its
"answer", which defines the reader's experience. I think it is Petillion
who suggests a connection with an earlier work (Borges, maybe - my notes
are in the office) where this idea is more explicit, and the resolution is
nearly identical to that of COL49, to wit, the door is "opened", but we are
not told what appears inside......I took some flack from legitimate
scholars on the list for recommending the cornell mag article, but I
maintain, that as a "catalyst" for a relevant interpretive premise, the
piece remains one of considerable merit.....

Oh, and Hollander/dudious is, in my personal experience, a kind
correspondent who seems perfectly willing to have his view challenged and
superceeded.....I don't say this in contradiction of what Jbor has related
(Jbor, is, in my view, another of the list's rare resources), but I wanted,
as an unapologetic COL49 enthusiast to see Hollander credited for his
contribution to my increased understanding of the novel....


love,
cfa





Original Message:
-----------------
From: Paul Mackin paul.mackin at verizon.net
Date: Tue, 08 Oct 2002 08:26:18 -0400
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: How people read the Pyncher (was Re: Charles Hollander's Essay)


Yes, well I do think Charles H. has captured the way a significant 
number of p-readers DO read the novels, essays, and P himself (Pynchon 
the man in society). Magic eye, double name business and all. I wouldn't 
have appreciated this before joining up with the p-list some seven years 
ago.

P.



Bandwraith at aol.com wrote:

>Charles Hollander's essay- Pynchon, JFK and the CIA: Magic
>Eye Views of The Crying of Lot 49, in Pynchon Notes 40-41
>(spring-fall 1997), is an amazing synthesis, a fresh 
>perspective on COL49 and desrves credit as such. 
>
>Furthermore the "half-names" and the decoding of
>their possible significance becomes in itself a 
>metaphor for the paranoid pov and the need for
>agents (of all ages!) to seek meaningful order in 
>otherwise random assemblages of data. Wonderful.
>
>It is an "out of the box" interpretation that Oedipa 
>within the fabric of the novel cannot see, but the reader, 
>with Hollander's assistance, is now made aware. But it 
>will, and therein the art of the author, always remain a 
>probability rather than a certainty, nor conversely, will it's
>probability ever be reduced to zero.
>
>That's just the nature of the world we share.
>Uncertainty, except for death and taxes, to
>turn a common phrase, are unavoidable.
>
>regards
>
>--------------------------------
>
>"At Penn's Ascension of the Delaware,
>Savages from the banks covertly stare,
>As at the Advent of some puissant Prince,
>Before whom, Chaos reign'd, and Order since..."
>
>[Tox, of course, opening lines of Pennsylvaniad, Book One]
>
>  
>




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