DeLillo in New Yorker (Updike as reviewer)

[Prsamsa at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/31/2003 11:51:01 AM US Mountain Standard Time, 
malignd at yahoo.com writes:


> Subj:Re: DeLillo in New Yorker (Updike as reviewer) 
> Date:3/31/2003 11:51:01 AM US Mountain Standard Time
> From:<A HREF="mailto:malignd at yahoo.com">malignd at yahoo.com</A>
> To:<A HREF="mailto:pynchon-l at waste.org">pynchon-l at waste.org</A>
> Sent from the Internet 
> 
> 
> 
> I agree with your crit.  about the New Yorker and
> Updike.  About two years ago, he just butchered a
> review on Denis Johnson's new book.  The guard has
> changed, the avante-garde is busy marching away from
> boring-married-white-guy fiction, so Updike or anyone
> from that generation shouldn't be reviewing things
> they miss half the context of ...>> 
> 
> Ageist bollocks.  Updike is as current, reads far
> more, and has more intelligent things to say about
> literature than most full-time critics.  
> 
> And Denis Johnson and Don DeLillo are about as
> "avante-garde" as Abe Rosenthal.
> 
> 
> 
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Well, a response.   My response, after getting all involved and finally 
diverging from the last newsgroup I hung out in, is simple:  I don't know 
what avante-garde is

I can learn more by asking questions than not, so seriously-casual, what 
writers are avante-garde today, which ones really excite the group, and to 
quote Robert Creeley,
"love" (of books), "where are you leading us now?"

I really wanna know.  I can get so isolated I'm sure I miss out on a lot;   
but some of the ones I've really enjoyed recently are:   Barbara Vine for 
suspense, Creeley, T. Berrigan, Gerald Locklin and the New York School for 
poetry, Will Self and George Saunders for fiction.  Rick Moody and Michael 
Chabon for mainstream stuff;  plus enjoyed "Moo" by Smiley, a lot.  I just 
read Fat City by Leonard Gardner and yeah:  
good as advertised.  

I was a bit put out, passionate in defense of Denis Johnson, above, but he is 
a Phoenix boy and Phoenix, like Sparta of old, needs the unadorned and human
dramas he writes.  And yeah.   Updike is a good writer for an old married 
white guy.   Too bad all his imitators aren't as good.   

Perry from Phoenix, "Samsa."


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