Yet Another Plea to Stay Pynchon-Focused

[Paul Mackin]

On Mon, 2003-02-03 at 11:03, Richard Romeo wrote:

> there have been so-called big books recently issued
> but they are more in the Corrections vein--large in
> scope but pretty much realistic narratives, focus on
> characters in that cause and effect game we call life:

The Corrections was excellent but too "easy" (not in any bad sense) for
a discussion list to get its teeth into. IMHO.
> 
> Powers The Time of Our Singing,a new book called Great
> Neck by Jay Cantor about a bunch of superhero friends
> growing up in the 60s, Euguenides' Middlesex, e.g.

I read the first chapter of The Time of Our Singing (in the Times), then
perused it further in the bookstore. Seemed like we were just going to
have a lot of fairly familiar events paraded before our eyes, without
much stimulation of the imagination. Powers seems uninspired.

Middlesex might be interesting. 
> 
> I would put Wallace in with this group and for those
> that like these writers, that's OK. 
> 
> I must have too much of the Mopery gene in me. The
> only recent writer I can say I was enthralled with was
> WG Sebald. As for these new crop of American writers,
> I think they're obsessions are unfortunately not mine.



P.