Hello Goodbye

[snappydresser]

Dear Craig,

Well said, here here! and goodbye.

YOPJ

PS - My deep dark P-List secret is that Vineland is my favorite.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Craig Keller" <evillights at mac.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2006 8:46 PM
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.
>
>
>
> -- 
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>
>