What Pynchon wrote?

[Paul Nightingale]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
> Behalf Of Terrance
> Sent: 23 May 2003 23:02
> Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: What Pynchon wrote?
> 
> 
> 
> >
> > Phase 3 (xv-xvii) deals with the accuracy of the novel's
> > prophesy/prediction, which means the reader is now being asked to
judge
> > the text (novel) against the world they (the reader) live in. By
this
> > stage, then, the reader (of P's Foreword, it doesn't matter if they
> > haven't read 1984 ... which is quite reasonable, really) has become
more
> > and more important. I would also suggest that, more and more, P
himself
> > as author is more important.
> 
> Well, it is a Foreword so it's reasonable to expect that people will
> read it prior to reading the novel.

Why is this reasonable? I never do if I'm coming to a novel for the
first time. Some idiots who don't know how to introduce a text always
manage to give stuff away; they're obsessed with their own 'learning'. I
never read reviews until afterwards (novel, play or film). If I read a
review (and usually, in this country, they're pretty awful) I read the
final paragraph to know what the writer thinks, their overall judgement:
it kind of matters in a roundabout way if it helps me locate that
reviewer, and I often go out and buy a book when it's been trashed.

What I'm talking about here is the range of different responses,
depending on who you are and what you want. I find if difficult to
accept that readers will read an introduction to a novel they haven't
read in order to find out what the novel's about. They'll just read the
novel. And if they do read the Foreword, precisely because they don't
know the novel itself, it won't mean much.

> For some it will be their very first
> reading of the novel, orwell, pynchon. In fact, when I teach it, I
> expect that most of the students will be reading the novel for the
first
> time. For most, if not all, it will be their first time reading
anything
> written by Pynchon. But of course it does matter. Those of us that
have
> read the novel has a better idea of what P is talking about since he
> talks about some of the characters and situations in the novel.
> 

Yes. But I think you manage to contradict yourself here. If 'we' have a
better idea of what P's talking about, then clearly those who don't know
the novel are more likely to be baffled by the references to the actual
novel. New readers don't know who Julia and Winston are etc. If your
students have never read the novel, or anything by P, where do you
start? We're supposed to be talking about P here. I'm not so sure I'd
start teaching his work with this Foreword.

> I'm not sure why you think the Foreword becomes more and more about P
> himself?

I've started to answer that above.

> 
> Is he more self-conscious? More introspective? What?

What's the difference between self-conscious and introspective here? And
please don't give me another dictionary definition. I think P asserts
himself, explicitly, as author. At the same time, the role of the
reader-as-reader (as opposed to reader-soaking-up-information) becomes
more important. My definition of 'author' here presupposes a certain
(active) definition of 'reader'.

The more I read it and think about it, the more I'm convinced this is a
very clever piece of writing. Which, inevitably, means I'm in deep
doo-doo with the Pynchon Bashing Society.