Hello Goodbye

[Ya Sam]

Dear Craig Keller,

Just in one post you managed to commit all the sins the P-list is notorious 
of. Good try.

Faithfully

Y


>From: Craig Keller <evillights at mac.com>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Hello Goodbye
>Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 20:46:30 -0400
>
>
>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.
>

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