Watts article redux

[Meg Larson]

A-and I should've added that it doesn't take a MacArthur Foundation genius 
to pick the hot-button topic of the day to expound upon and exploit--yes, 
exploit--for a few bucks, even if what "you" write is how "you" feel on that 
topic.


> it was sed:
>
>>> I don't believe that Pynchon's purpose in writing the article was to
>>> increase sales of his novels or to bring his name under wider notice, or
>>> even to make a quick buck (which might have been the case with the 
>>> 'Esquire'
>>> and 'Cavalier' gigs.) I think that's quite a cynical view of why he 
>>> wrote
>>> the piece.
>>
> <snip>
>
> Writing to make money is cynical?
> As the great Mencken once wrote, on the subject of writing:
>
> "The impulse to create beauty is rather rare in literary men . . .
> Far ahead of it comes the yearning to make money.
> And after the yearning to make money comes the yearning to make a noise."
>
> Whatever Pynch's intentions were, however noble, he chose to make money 
> and a noise, and if "Watts" is nothing else, it is noise.  As hard as it 
> may be to believe, sometimes the quick buck is the real intention.
>
>