re Book Description

[Paul Mackin]

On Jul 17, 2006, at 6:13 PM, MalignD at aol.com wrote:

> << As the oft-repeated negative comments roll in on schedule,  
> unchanged since
> the last go-round, about anything Pynchon has written since GR or  
> except GR -
> the other novels, stories, blurbs, essays, & etc. - it might be  
> fruitful to
> consider how useful it is to use the same criteria to evaluate  
> everything he
> writes and publishes, disregarding the different purposes for which  
> they are
> written, the differing publishing contexts, etc.  >>
>
> If ever I thought it would be fun to have this douchebag back to  
> kick around
> -- I didn't -- this was all that would have been needed to dislodge  
> the 
> thought.
>
> This post is incoherent.  He's written great novels; his essays are  
> a lot
> less than great; his short stories ditto.  One reads, one forms  
> opinions, one
> exprersses them, if one is not a blinkered acolyte.  But you, after  
> all -- a
> grown man with a child -- , call yourself "pynchonoid."
>
> This blurb -- which you apparently want to be considered as a genre  
> -- is, if
> taken seriously -- that is, as an author writing about his work --  
> awful.
> Consider this paragraph:
>
> "As an era of certainty comes crashing down around their ears and an
> unpredictable future commences, these folks are mostly just trying  
> to pursue their
> lives. Sometimes they manage to catch up; sometimes it's their  
> lives that
> pursue them."
>
> This is bad, sentimental, trite writing.  Parody is the only thing  
> that lets
> him off the hook, assuming he wrote it.  If he wrote this  
> sincerely, well ...
> There's always GR and a lot of reservations about what's coming,  
> all 900 pages
> of it.
>
>
The piece in question is obviously meant to be objectively godawful.  
(whether Pynchon wrote it or not)

So, is his putting it out too lacking in respect for his readers?

I can ''t say  I minded very much, though you have to contrast P's  
approach with that of Philip Roth's in his explanation of what he was  
doing in writing "Plot Against America."  Roth's piece was serious,  
modest, informative.  It was so good some people said he shouldn't   
have been trying to read the book for us in advance.  Also, was it  
too much like a preemptive strike against future criticism as to  
implausibility.  At least Pynchon isn't reading his book for  us. The  
preemptive strike bit we can't yet be entirely sure  about.