ATD: ad: Pynchon excerpt from new novel

[Spencer T. Campbell]

I'm sorry, I certainly wasn't trying to pass any kind of premature
judgment on the novel itself--based on the title, the blurb, or any of
it.  And 'dreadful' was, I admit, hyperbolic.  But, if authentic, I
should like to think that the fact that it's filthy with pop-western
cliche marks it as some kind of broad genre parody, as opposed to an
attempt at the kind of genuine and aching drama that Pynchon has
achieved in his other books.  I mean, "in classic throwdown posture"
or "trying to aim it as straight as a shaking pair of hands would
allow"...these are TV cues, not penetrating scene-setting.

So my point was that, if it's a moment of caricature, it's odd that
Penguin would choose to excerpt as advertisement.  I have every faith
that Pynchon is sharp as ever, but this passage isn't particularly
sharp.

But Pynchon is difficult to excerpt (genious point, I know).  A lot of
the power of individual passages is the endpoint of pages and pages of
mounting incident or symbolic sleight-of-hand.

In short: don't think a few paragraphs and some chatter mean this
phone-book's a clunker, but don't undestand penguin's marketing
strategy, either.


On 8/4/06, Dave Monroe <monropolitan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Dont like it on the basis of a title, a blurb, and
> MAYBE one page?   Don't read it, then, I guess ...
>
> But then don't complain about it, either ...
>