Orwell & Nineteen Eighty-Four

[pynchonoid]

Questioning the consensus view doesn't have to result
in rejecting it. Sometimes the consensus view makes
sense, sometimes not.  

In this case, in addition to the people I know in
daily life who have read the foreword, at least three
reviewers (one in SF -- somebody I have worked for, in
fact -- NY and Germany) seem to have reached similar
conclusions about the foreword.  Instead of "appeal to
authority" I'm using this as a "reality check".
Neither Kipen nor Knipfel have a particular political
axe to grind -- not one that's evident in their
reviews of Pynchon's foreword, at least -- and neither
of them are involved in any of the interpersonal games
on Pynchon-L that sometimes color the way people
present their responses to Pynchon here. 

Everybody is entilted to read Pynchon anyway they want
to read him, of course. I agree with Dave Monroe, it's
not about right or wrong. It's exploring different
ways of looking at Pynchon's work, playing with the
text and seeing what emerges, in an open-ended,
open-minded sort of way. That's not often the way it's
done here on Pynchon-L with its defenses avoidences
intrigues grudges and occasional insanities, but it's
not impossible either.

Pynchon-L remains the only place I know where Pynchon
is called a shitty writer, elsewhere he's on the
perennial Nobel Prize short-list, has an academic army
teaching and studying his works, his books are
perennial backlist bestsellers, etc. Having read
Pynchon and having read his critics, I agree with
those who find his work consistently fascinating,
worth reading and reading about, including his novels,
and his essays, intros, forewords, book support
quotes, Ford Foundation grant applications, juvenila,
letters, etc. 


--- s~Z <keithsz at concentric.net> wrote:
> Why do use an appeal to authority like this as an
> argument? I thought you
> were of the mindset to always question authority and
> the consensus view of
> things, no?

me:
> >>>Funny how the reviewers who have written about
> Pynchon's foreward to _1984_ don't have any trouble
> understanding his references to the Bush
> Administration's fascistic response to 9-11. I guess
> they got the special copies of the book that
> included
> a secret decoder ring. <<<

=====
<http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/>

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