Chix dig Infinite Jest more than Pynchon/Vollmann

[Mark A. Douglas]

Okay, and yes to all of your points here.
But our top 10's are as terribly subjective as are all top 10's.  

This might be pure speculation on my part, but I imagine that of all the
editions of GR that are sold (which I'm going to sort of use as a bellwether
here, noting that it doesn't take into account libraries and used book
stores, both bricks and clicks), most are either:	
	a) sold to people who won't get past the first 70 or so pages, or
	b) sold to Pychonphiles who have multiple editions and read them
all.

My point being, I don't think Pynchon is as terribly mass-popular as we on
the Plist might imagine him to be, or might find him deserving to be.  And I
don't think it's necessarily a gender thing.  I think, outside of a small
group that finds Pynchon and clings to him, and outside of literary circles,
Pynchon is more of an unread icon in American Literature (as it understands
itself to be capitalized) than he is a read one.  Same with Gaddis.  These
are the two monsters of US letters in the 20th century, underappreciated,
yes, and underread, yes, but the root cause goes back to the difficulty of
the text(s), and is then related to the subject matter of the text(s).  Many
who find the reading level acceptable simply don't take a shine to the
subjects at hand, and there is the work involved in the read, and let's face
it: working while reading simply isn't the cultural norm these days, if it
ever was.  

Thankfully, these monsters produce.  Consider Vollmann.  It is simply
amazing to me that he's even published at all, considering a) the difficulty
level of his texts, and b) the subject matters that he addresses.  And then
there's his prolifigacy (?) if that's the word I'm looking for.  I think
Wallace gets away with an IJ simply because of it's unusualness, mainly, and
only secondarily because of it's worth.  And his readership is much the same
as Pynchon's, maybe a few years removed.  GR did to colleges in the 70's
what IJ did in the 90's, to some degree.  All the hepcats had to read him,
or at least carry the book around and recount the Byron the Bulb story or
somesuch, just as IJ's Echelon game may be cited by Wallacians.  To my mind,
at least, Pynchon, Vollman, McElroy, Wallace, Gaddis, Barth can be included
here, these guys (note: no women to speak in this category) form a
sub-sub-sub-genre, and not one that's going to appeal to 9 out of 10
readers, but rather to the 1 out of 10, and frankly, women make up a
proportionately larger percentage of readers overall.

Which may be an old hat to most of us.

Peace

Mark  

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of Paul Mackin
Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2004 11:31 AM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: RE: Chix dig Infinite Jest more than Pynchon/Vollmann

On Sat, 2004-09-25 at 11:08, Mark A. Douglas wrote:
> GR was published same year as Fear of Flying. 

Oh yes. Erica Jong and her zipless xxxx. Good example.

>  So, I'm asking:  what's the
> correlation to the sexual revolution?

I was just noting that GR came out in the '70s when all hell broke loose
on the American middle class sexual front. It was wonderful but it
couldn't last. Either God got mad and sent AIDS, or, more likely, people
got tired of having their actual lives as well their reading lives
dominated by sex. Sex was acting like a Gresham's Law--bad money
(currency) drives out good--in the human interaction realm.

I'm not saying that GR was a VICTIM of the sexual revolution, only that
it's treatment of male/female relations was influenced by that event.
Pynchon lived in the same world as all the rest of us.

> 73 was a politcally charged time, but the freedoms encountered in the 60's
> were only beginning to hit the mainstream, that I'll give you;

Yes, this seems correct.

>  if I'm
> understanding your point, and I may not be, IJ hits with readers because
> they can relate, whereas with GR, they can't. 

Yes, there is more emotional content in IJ to relate to than in GR.  


>  Which doesn't begin to
> explain why Mason&Dixon would be more of a hit, imho.

M&D may also have had a little more emotional tug to it than GR. More
for women (and not only women) to latch onto. Many people of both sexes
found GR not their cup of tea. Here we are only trying to discover why
more women than men would reject the book. (we may also be trying to
discover why P is in general more liked by men than women--if this is
actually the case--we have nothing but the p-list and anecdotal evidence
to go on)

I realize I make a lot of broad generalizations. Think they are useful
nevertheless. On the p-list one must make points telegrapically.
Otherwise nobody bothers.

What is more telegraphic than BEST TEN LISTS?