eGad: Pynchon excerpt from new novel

Thu Aug 3 22:00:14 CDT 2006

> or Warlock?

That particular passage doesn't strike me as
reminiscent of Warlock.  It's too silly.  But Warlock
is quite an enjoyable book, and would be a decent
place to steal from.

-Chris

--- pynchon-l-digest
<owner-pynchon-l-digest at waste.org> wrote:

> 
> pynchon-l-digest       Thursday, August 3 2006      
> Volume 02 : Number 4646
> 
> 
> 
> Hello Goodbye
> Re: Pynchon excerpt from new novel  
> Re: ATD: ad: Pynchon excerpt from new novel
> Re: Hello Goodbye
> RE: Hello Goodbye
> ATD: Kirksville Cyclone
> Re: Hello Goodbye
> Re: NP:Blood Meridian
> Re: Hello Goodbye
> Re:  eGad: Pynchon excerpt from new novel
> Re: NP:Blood Meridian
> Re: Hello Goodbye
> Re: Discovery of Heaven (spoilers galore)
> Re: profession
> Re: Hello Goodbye
> Re: Pynchon excerpt from new novel  
> Re: Hello Goodbye
> Re: ATD: Kirksville Cyclone
> Re:  Hello Goodbye
> Re: Pynchon excerpt from new novel
> 
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 20:46:30 -0400
> From: Craig Keller <evillights at mac.com>
> Subject: Hello Goodbye
> 
> 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.
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 11:04:17 +1000
> From: jbor at bigpond.com
> Subject: Re: Pynchon excerpt from new novel  
> 
> Holy Toledo, badman. I think you're on to something.
> 
> best
> 
> On 04/08/2006, Paul wrote:
> 
> >> when you google uncompahgre  kenosha you get a
> whole shit load of  
> >> hits.
> >>
> >> the plateau and the  pass are in the  same
> general vicinity
> >>
> >> http://www.google.com/search? 
> >>
>
client=safari&rls=en&q=Uncompahgre+kenosha&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
> 
> 
> > Sounds like it's patterned after the pulp-western
> writing  style used
> > in Forbes Parkhill's "the Kenosha Kid."
> >
> > Colorado locale as well.
> >
> > On Aug 3, 2006, at 4:53 PM, Steven Moore wrote:
> >
> > > The new Penguin Press catalog has an excerpt
> from Pynchon's
> > > "Against the Day," which I thought I'd
> transcribe for you:
> > >
> > > Back in 1899, not long after the terrible
> cyclone that year which
> > > devastated the town, Young Willis Turnstone,
> freshly credentialed
> > > from the American School of Osteopathy, had set
> out westward from
> > > Kirksville, Missouri, with a small grip holding
> a change of
> > > personal linen, an extra shirt, a note of
> encouragement 
=== message truncated ===

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