Hello Goodbye

[Craig Keller]

I happened to subscribe to this list a week or two before the  
announcement of 'Against the Day' had been made, thought I'd poke  
around, see what the good word was, check out whether or not there  
were some climate of ideas here I might enjoy in lieu of the  
disgusting northeast U.S. summer.

As far as I can tell, there's a majority chorus here -- undoubtedly  
not representative of the list as a whole, but nevertheless -- who  
love to fucking opine, opine, and opine some more, make snap- 
judgments about tiny slivers of excerpts/not-excerpts from a  
forthcoming novel, and constantly paranoi-ize-out about whether a  
blurb might not be a "hoax," all based on some totally arbitrary  
analyses of discrete paragraphs.  As though the tone of the blurb  
were something SO alien they just couldn't conceive that the lilt of  
certain paragraphs could possibly emit from Pynchon's keyboard -- as  
though they had expected something that looked like Francis Bacon, or  
at least EXPECTED that JEEZ it would have all the lofty tenor of the  
portions of 'Gravity's Rainbow' that dealt with Christmastide  
rationings, and not (quel gaucherie) the amble of the banana jokes --  
or as though the tiniest piece of self-promotion was on the level of,  
like, an antri-Castro mega-sell-out).  And with this, I wonder how  
familiar a percentage of the cretins on this list really are with  
Pynchon's work; wonder whether they're clinging to some weird,  
mediated "meme of Pynchon" rather than the true stuff in print itself  
and between the lines...

To the afore-castigated: Why would I ever want to discuss literature,  
or more broadly, art with any of you?  Why would I want to discuss  
Pynchon's novels in particular with you?  Snap-judgments betray the  
fact that you're unsympathetic toward the artist, that you position  
yourselves on some crazed aerie as -superior- to one of your  
supposedly favorite artists whom you otherwise revere as a savior (no  
wonder he doesn't give interviews; if I were in his position  
possessing legions like you, I wouldn't want to have myself be made  
"accessible" either), that you have no -affection- for the works of  
the artists who concern you, or an understanding that a half-page- 
long "funny bit" from any of those revered novels might also strike  
you, ripped from its context, as "total shit."

I wouldn't doubt 'Vineland' is reviled among your ranks.

My own syllabus for rehabilitation-which-will-probably-never-arrive  
would be as follows:

Stop listening to Prince, and start listening to Radiohead and Bach.

Stop watching the films of Terry Gilliam and Ishiro Honda, and start  
exploring the cinema of John Ford (no no, not just 'The Searchers' --  
but 'Doctor Bull,' 'The Sun Shines Bright,' 'Wagon Master,' 'The  
Battle of Midway,' 'The Wings of Eagles'), Jacques Rivette, Philippe  
Garrel, Pedro Costa, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tsai Ming-liang, Jean Eustache,  
Nicholas Ray, Chris Marker, Joâo César Monteiro, Samira Makhmalbaf,  
Maurice Pialat, Naomi Kawase, Abel Ferrara, Béla Tarr, Louis  
Feuillade, Seijun Suzuki, Agnès Varda, and on and forth and so.

To the maniacs I've here addressed -- the sum of your wailing is  
(almost, but not quite) enough to make a major artist paralyzed,  
stultified to the point of questioning what his motives are, what his  
identity is after all (and does he even have one, or is all just  
infinite mirrors?!?!).  But then any great artist would almost  
instantaneously snap out of the three-second vertigo and ponder: "My  
identity is not my 'fans'."

To the rational literature-cognoscenti on the list who are brave and  
strong enough to wade through the unfettered puke of sewage  
hereabouts-L -- I salute you, and bid you keep cool and care.

Craig Keller.