re Re: VL to SL: Pynchon's Self-Characterization

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Mackin" <paul.mackin at verizon.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 8:41 PM
Subject: Re: re Re: VL to SL: Pynchon's Self-Characterization


>
> Many intellectual young people of Pynchon's cohort were ATTRACTED to
> what was going on in the various Beat locales such as North Beach and
> Greenwich Village just as they would have been to any exciting new
> intellectual anti-establishment movement. And many may have been
> influenced in their own future work by the writers and poets of the Beat
> mentality.
>

Right, I fully agree, especially to the last sentence. I wonder if I ever
had read P. if I hadn't read Kerouac and Burroughs years before. Insofar I
think the "Beat mentality"-influence goes for the readers of Kerouac and P.
too.

> The thing we have to remember however is that these youth weren't and
> couldn't have been truly of the Beat Generation. They hadn't lived long
> enough. They hadn't had the experience as adults of the dislocations of
> War or the wild optimism and high expectations of the post-war decade.

Especially lacking that WW-2 experience as a grown-up is the big difference
between P. and Kerouac. There are ten years between them.

Otto