Roy Orbison: Mercy, Venice & Viena

[Terrance]

Otto sez, 

"So concluding from this I'd say our discussion here already proves
that it's a good story." 

What's a good story? I don't think we have established a definition of a
"good story." 
Moreover, we've not discussed the story. In fact, there seems to be very
little interest in the story itself. The Pynchon-List is nothing more
than piss-poor and cranky literary criticism disguised as discussion of
Pynchon and his published works. I can play that. But we've been there
and done that. It's Deja Vu all over again and again and again.   Even
if one accepts that Monroe's method is and excellent approach to
Pynchon's works and to literature generally (as I do), the story doesn't
merit the kind of line by line explication that we are subjecting it to.
Paul Nightingale, pulling another rabbit out of Faucalt's hat, argues
that those of us attempting to quash this tedious and protracted
colloquium and move onto a novel like GR, are in league with Saint
Jerome.  Does discussion of MMV helps us understand the novelist who
wrote it and a couple-few masterworks (V., GR, M&D)? Surely this
sophomoric story is worth as much as the author's letters, diaries,
notebooks, prefaces, introductions, editorials, scribblings on the backs
of record album jackets, sketches smeared with brown mustard on Yellow
Nathan's napkins. 
Of course, being such careful critics, none are foolish enough to make
one-to-one equation between a work of art and a Nathan's napkin. Or
perhaps I'm being too critical. 
Since a work of art is the product of an artist's imagination, an since
the imagination works in mysterious ways, who is to say that the mustard
smear is not more revealing of the artist's temperament and convictions
than any of the primary sources critics are desperate to get their
smeary little paws on. 

Notes: 

NYP "Acts Of Godzilla"  by Jim Knipfel 
What is a critic and why is he stepping on my Nathan's Napkin?  by Fools
Gold
Pretty Voozman by Roy