eGad: Pynchon excerpt from new novel

[Paul Mackin]

On Aug 4, 2006, at 1:30 PM, Ya Sam wrote:

> Yeah, that's a pertinent question. Although at the present moment  
> I'm more obsessed with another one, the one everybody on the p-list  
> must be fed up with (I asked it several times). Let me paraphrase  
> it: How come on the gaddis list they have this precious, limited  
> edition, etc. catalogue, and none on the p-list has it?

OK, now I get it. The answer to your question in all likelihood is  
that the g-list has Steven Moore, a recognized authority on Gaddis  
but more importantly someone  with good connections in the literary  
fiction publishing world.  Don't know what his precise position is,   
though it's been mentioned on the g-list.  He does do upscale reviews  
and  gets quoted in big time periodicals, etc. Has no present  
academic affiliation as far as I know.


> If this thing is real, are we talking about some hard-to-get  
> GALLEYS of a CATALOGUE, available only to a limited set of people?  
> Once that question is answered the discussion on the list might  
> become a little bit more focussed. It's better to deal with a real  
> excerpt than with reportedly/reputedly such. Although I'm inclined  
> to think it is. Sounds pretty Pynchonian to me.
>
>
>> From: Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net>
>> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>> Subject: Re: eGad: Pynchon excerpt from new novel
>> Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2006 13:07:31 -0400
>>
>>
>> On Aug 4, 2006, at 12:07 PM, Ya Sam wrote:
>>
>>>>
>>>> ... but now imagine it's 1987 and you've been handed a
>>>> brief excerpt from the forthcoming M&D ...
>>>>
>>> Hmm. The style of M&D, which I have to admit is sustained   
>>> throughout the novel, is a different thing altogether. Pynchon   
>>> achieved a skilful recreation of the 18th century English  
>>> literary  text. To tell the truth I recently got hooked to  
>>> literature of that  period  and caught myself at the thought that  
>>> what I was reading  was ripped off straight from M&D and The  
>>> Sotweed-Factor. However,  if we're talking about an intentionally  
>>> bad pulpish style, like  that of the excerpt, Pynchon has a  
>>> tendency to segue from that kind  of writing into baroque verbose  
>>> fugues, and back again. It's his  staple.
>>> I'm convinced it's impossible to make a notion about the whole   
>>> thing on the basis of such a short sample, and even with M&D,  
>>> well,  it is not that homogenious. As to the why this particular  
>>> excerpt  has been chosen, if it's not novel-within-a-novel, I can  
>>> make  another, altogether heretical conjecture: It is the  
>>> beginning of  the novel (please don't rush to stone me yet!)
>>
>>
>>
>> Good thinking, Ya Sam. I don't necessarily believe you're  
>> correct,  but you're focussing on the right question. Why was this  
>> particular  passage chosen?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
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>
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