Eggers on Moody and Pynchon

[davemarc]

Here's an excerpt of author/editor/publisher Dave Eggers comments from a Q&A
at

http://mcsweeneys.net/links/interview/readers_de.html

d.

*

Rick Moody's The Black Veil is brilliant. Anyone who actually reads it will
know this. People like Moody, who really reach and take great risks, should
be rewarded, rather than punished (and he was, by some) for whatever
shortcomings people see in their work. It's a strange time in books, you
know, where skilled experimentation is not only discouraged, it's being
bullied completely out of the arena. And that just can't be tolerated. Moody
is obviously a guy with virtuosic talent, so why not give him a little
space? Not that Moody's work is all that similar, but what would happen if
Barth, Barthelme, Pynchon, Millhauser or even Dos Passos debuted today?
They'd all be called pretentious or fussy or cold. It's scary to think of
the beating they'd get. It's time, I think, that the critical community
embrace the idea of pluralism in books - where very different approaches can
co-exist, and where artistic diversity is honored, and where great risks are
encouraged. If the risk pays off, give them credit; if it doesn't, certainly
you can't come down harder than you would on someone who's not even making
an effort to expand the boundaries of the form.