V. Was for Varo Too

[rich]

thx for the update, Clement

what was the reaction to word of the new Pynchon novel?

here it's been oboy. oboy. woo-hoo! holy shite! and it's about time ;)

we are all a bit weirded out about chicago location and in the 1890s

rich


On 6/28/06, Clement Levy <cl.levy at free.fr> wrote:
>
> Hi all, lemme give you a few infos on Granada International Pynchon
> Week.
> The International Pynchon Conference held in Granada two weeks ago was
> a great opportunity for European Pynchonites to meet each other and
> join the Americans who passed over the Ocean to the old Andalusian
> city.
> I attended the conference as an auditor, not being ready in time to
> send a proposal or even to get something audible at the right moment.
> The organization was wonderful, Francisco Collado from the University
> of Zaragoza being a very attentive chairman during the four days of the
> conference, and Celia Wallhead offering to all a cheerful welcome in
> her university, at the Centro de Lenguas Modernas. John Krafft (Pynchon
> Notes, Miami University), through his wistful comments and kind notes,
> dispensed to all of us his deep knowledge of Pynchon's works.
> I should add that Granada is one of these cities you cannot leave
> without feeling sorry. So much to see, good wines and tapas, flamenco
> dancers on the Sacromonte hill, and the palaces of the ancient Moor
> rulers on the Alhambra citadel. Celia Wallhead helped us discover the
> city, giving good advice, heartily interpreting some of the facts we
> were to witness, Granada living at that time according to the rhythm of
> the Corpus Christi fair, ceremonies and processions.
> So after coming back home I dried my tears and re-read my notes. Not
> being an expert (not yet!) in Pynchon studies, I wouldn't comment
> precisely enough on every one of the 22 papers read (or sometimes acted
> in the most vivid way), but let me try to present what was for me the
> most inspiring. Other auditors shall develop and amend the missing or
> badly understood parts in my summary.
> A few of the lecturers studied Pynchon's works under other authors
> perspective: Wittgenstein by Sascha Poehlmann, or Dan Brown (!) by
> Rodney Taveira.
> Art was the common theme of a few papers: songs in the short stories by
> Damian Hey, engineering as an art by Birger Vanwesenbeeck, V-Effect by
> Giuseppe Episcopo, and of course the paintings of Remedios Varo, in
> William Day's talks.
> Some scholars chose to study other significant themes, as childhood by
> Zofia Kolbuszewska, entropy by William Day, Francisco Collado, and
> Julián Jiménez Hefferman.
> Close studies of characters or memorable passages were also offered by
> Terry Reilly (Carroll Eventyr and Charles Richet, a French
> psychologist), Mark Quinn (the Kenosha Kid and Once Upon A Time in the
> West, by Sergio Leone, as one of the sources), and Celia Wallhead on
> Oedipa Maas (or how to teach Lot 49). Tom Schaub too offered a very
> interesting study on the deaf-mutes' dance scene in The Crying of Lot
> 49.
> Luc Herman produced a wonderful insight of the way Pynchon modified his
> first version of V., following (?) or choosing not to follow the advice
> of his editor. A-and Steven Weisenburger went further in his study of
> Pynchon's spaces in term of a topology of powers and gave us a great
> analysis of the state of emergency in which so many characters are
> portrayed (inmates, refugees, fugitives), and that characterizes
> democracy (as a body politics, in Foucault's terms). This paper fit
> very well with Robert Holton's, who delivered a masterly study of
> "lumpen" in Pynchon's novels. The social and political question was
> thus one of the big issues of this great conference.
> I am leaving much aside, but I would be glad if this short summary
> could help you gather some more information on Pynchon Week 2006.
> Best regards.
> Clément Lévy
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20060628/6486e126/attachment.html>