98% Orwell Free

Paul Mackin paul.mackin at verizon.net
Mon May 26 10:09:32 CDT 2003


On Mon, 2003-05-26 at 10:52, David Morris wrote:
> --- Jonathan Hall <jmh69 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> > As an aside on the 'Foreword' discussion: I'm relieved Pynchon writes very
> few essays; the 'Ellipse of Uncertainty' drawn by his novels is much more
> becoming.
> 
> This foreword discussion shows, I think, that Pynchon wants to maintain that
> 'Ellipse of Uncertainty' even in his essays.  He doesn't want to be nailed
> down.  But in this case he's not very entertaining nor thought provoking.  It's
> one big "ho-hum" IMHO.


Yeah, I agree, but it still looks like at least another week is going to
be spent on "the introduction" as predictable and non-rewarding as this
is likely to be. The sad fact is, there is nothing much else to talk
about. 

I'd like to suggest a possible way of livening things up little. 

The mind numbing experience of last week was I think due to the fact
that the 9/11 people and the non-9/11 people don't seem to be speaking
the same language. It's like they were from different planets. (no fair
speculating on which are the Martians)

Anyway, since there obviously isn't going to be any further meeting of
the minds between the two main affinity groups, why not drop the
inter-group back and forth and concentrate for a week on intra-group
differences of opinion.  There are such differences. Though these might
not be very major, more details than anything else, still they might be
interesting to iron out. 

So, how about this? During the experiment the 9/11 people would talk
only to other 9/11 people and the same would go for the non-9/11 people.

What y'all think?

P.






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