Californian Sensibility

[kelber at mindspring.com]

I forget, but doesn't everyone end up back on the East Coast at the end of On the Road?

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: David Kipen <kipend at gmail.com>
>Sent: Aug 30, 2006 11:48 AM
>To: "robinlandseadel at comcast.net" <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
>Cc: John Carvill <JCarvill at algsoftware.com>, Paul Nightingale <isread at btopenworld.com>, Steven <mcquaryq at comcast.net>, April Phillips <apes1 at cox.net>, pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: Californian Sensibility
>
>Hey, who wants to settle an office bet? Can anyone name a work of fiction
>about someone moving from California to the East Coast? Or do they all run
>the other way around?
>
>All finest,
>David Kipen
>
>
>
>
>On 8/23/06, robinlandseadel at comcast.net <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>> Tom Wolfe
>>
>>  -------------- Original message ----------------------
>> From: "David Kipen" <kipend at gmail.com>
>> I could swear I've written somewhere that Pynchon and Didion share one
>> distinction with one other and perhaps no one else: They've each written
>> well about both Northern *and* Southern California. Though perhaps TC Boyle
>> would also qualify. Any other candidates?
>>
>> All finest,
>> David
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: "David Kipen" <kipend at gmail.com>
>> To: "robinlandseadel at comcast.net" <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
>> Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 13:22:46 +0000
>> Subject: Re: Californian Sensibility
>> I could swear I've written somewhere that Pynchon and Didion share one
>> distinction with one other and perhaps no one else: They've each written
>> well about both Northern *and* Southern California. Though perhaps TC
>> Boyle would also qualify. Any other candidates?
>>
>> All finest,
>> David
>>
>>
>> On 8/23/06, robinlandseadel at comcast.net <robinlandseadel at comcast.net >
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > "The White Album" is fantastic, and well worth picking up a copy. It's
>> > easy to find in used book stores.
>> > -------------- Original message ----------------------
>> > From: "John Carvill" <JCarvill at algsoftware.com>
>> > > Never been to anywhere on the West coast of the US, but loved Vineland
>> >
>> > > passionately.
>> > >
>> > > Just finished reading a long profile/interview of Joan Didion in The
>> > > Observer, which touches on this. May be of general interest also but
>> > as
>> > > I say it's quite long so won't post it all.
>> > >
>> > > Not read anything of Didion's. Might give 'Slouching..' a try soon
>> > > though.
>> > >
>> > > Wish they'd do something of this length and depth on Pynchon. Brief
>> > > samples below.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > 'The years of writing magically'
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > There is the sense in that piece [The White Album], and several others
>> > > of hers from that time, of someone looking on with a kind of appalled
>> > > fascination at the excesses of late Sixties counterculture. The title
>> > > essay of Slouching Towards Bethlehem was actually written in 1967, and
>> > > dissects the ascendant hippy scene in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury
>> > > area with a mixture of wry observation and mounting unease. 'I didn't
>> > > see a lot of peace and love on the Haight in the so-called summer of
>> > > love,' she says now. 'It seemed like every kid I talked to there was
>> > > desperately unhappy.'
>> > >
>> > > Was her original point of view essentially generational, though? Might
>> >
>> > > she have immersed herself in the hippy scene had she been younger? 'I
>> > > was from a different generation,' she drawls. 'I grew up in a
>> > different
>> > > time and my writing was formed by the values of that other time. Had I
>> >
>> > > been of the generation I was writing about, I don't know if I would
>> > have
>> > > been swept along.'
>> > >
>> > > .
>> > > .
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > As a Californian now living in New York, I ask her where she feels she
>> >
>> > > most belongs? 'Oh, California. For sure. I'm not really attuned to
>> > here.
>> > > At one level, I feel perfectly comfortable in New York, but I really
>> > > believe that is because it is one of those cities where people feel
>> > > comfortable wherever they are from. The only times I felt a deep
>> > > attachment to the city was in my twenties, and again after 9/11. But I
>> > > would say for sure that I have a Californian sensibility.'
>> > >
>> > > And how would she define that sensibility? 'Well. it's an outsider's
>> > > sensibility. Definitely. On the edge of things. People don't feel at
>> > > home in Los Angeles if they come from somewhere else. It takes a long
>> > > time to get it. And people who come from there tend to have an outside
>> > > point of view. That's certainly true in my case.'
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/biography/story/0,,1854009,00.ht
>> > > ml
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
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