Pynchon Blurb for Moody

[Paul Mackin]

Richard Romeo wrote:

>Rick Moody, writing with boldness, humor, generosity of spirit, and a
>welcome sense of wrath, takes the art of the memoir an important step
>into its future. -Thomas Pynchon
>Is Moody's agent Ms. Jackson too?
>
>I wonder Paul about P.'s venturings into nonfiction--there really isn't
>much there. It seems pretty scattershot to me.
>
>Rich
>
On rereading my post (quoted below) I shouldn't have said the reviewer 
of Moody's memoir considered the book "not a good idea." There was much 
in it he liked, perhaps for the same reasons as Pynchon, but 
nevertheless there is quite a bit DeMott does not like and he goes into 
what is he thinks is good and what is not so good in considerable 
detail. One sweeping (I think it's sweeping) criticism is that  "the 
chief problem the book presents is that of a significant  talent at odds 
with itself."What the reviewer means is a little complex to try and 
describe here (I hope p-listers will read the review) but one element of 
it has to do with the difference between writing about "the 
world-according-to-me," which is how memoirists tend to write, and "the 
world shaped by an active moral imagination," which would be the way of 
a good novelist, which DeMott clearly regards Moody as being.  The 
reviewer  uses the example of the novel Purple America. He describes an 
encounter among the three principals, Billie, her husband, and her son,  
and concludes "as fondness and fury battle each other in this circle of 
human suffering, readers are reminded of delicate intricacies of moral 
response--complications brought to life best by patience with mixed 
motives, skill at imagining the interiour lives of others in a room, 
nuanced skepticism of moral categories: qualities, clearly, of the sound 
novelist's mind." He contrasts this with the moralizing and condemnation 
of practically everybody including Moody himself that parts of the 
memoir have received fairly wide criticism for.

Do I mean Pynchon is guilty of "the world-according-to-me" type sins in 
his journalism. Well I'm very unsure of myself but it seems a 
possiblity. There must be some reason I personally tend to dislike both 
the Watts and Sloth pieces. Anyway, I thought the connection I was at 
least tempted to draw was worth passing on.

Then there is the famous New England name business. Perhaps Pynchon's 
feelings on the matter  do not in the least correspond with Moody's but 
it's still something I thought about. Here's a quote from Moody: (think 
about Slothrop)

We were the no-account Moodys. The dead wood on the family tree. The 
dross that made the gold nuggets shine. We were shut-ins of history. We 
were the leftovers in the repast of American Achievement . . . . My 
line, for some hundred years or more, had been liars about our lineage. 
Indeed, we were always looking over the fence at those other Moodys. . . 
. Those Moodys went to Harvard, those Moodys preached from the pulpit of 
the eminent towns of the colonies, whipping up American pride in the 
revolutionary hour. . . . My Moodys, perhaps once acquainted with the 
other, back in Exeter, or on the battlefield at Louisburg, had otherwise 
retired for a century or more to the inland to look after sheep . . . .

P.

>------------------------------
>
>Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 12:45:23 -0400
>From: Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net>
>Subject: The New York Review of Books: Guilt Stalker
>
>Unfortunately this is not a link to the full review of the Moody 
>memoire. Only a sampling of current issue NYR articles are free online.
>
>I think the piece will be of interest to Pynchon watchers for at least 
>two reasons.
>
>Both P and M bear famous New England names, which figure in their
>writing.
>
>Both have ventured outside novel writing, where their talents are widely
>
>acknowledged, into nonfiction. The reviewer  explains why he thinks in 
>Moody's case this was not a good idea.
>
>No mention of Pynchon in the review.
>
>P.
>
>
>http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=15696
>
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