[Tore Rye Andersen]

>Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2006 18:14:00 EST
>From: MalignD at aol.com
>Subject: Re:

It's clear that you like your GR - don't we all? And you're of course right 
in claiming that Slow Learner can't even begin to compare to Dubliners. The 
Pynchon of Slow Learner really seems to be a future novelist experimenting 
with different literary techniques, whereas the Joyce of Dubliners seems 
like a fully-fledged short story-writer who later turned into a novelist.

I'd have to agree with Ya Sam, though, when he rates Dubliners above A 
Portrait of the Artist. It was really quite ridiculous of the Modern Library 
to put that novel third on their list of the 100 greatest (English language) 
novels of the 20th century (just as it was ridiculous to leave GR completely 
off the list).

Ulysses, on the other hand, does belong on the very top of that list (as 
does GR). The best passages in Ulysses can't really been surpassed, but I 
believe that Joyce's masterpiece has its weaknesses as well, especially the 
somewhat forced nature of some of its stylistic experiments. Joyce never 
really wrote for the reader. He wrote for himself, for posterity (and for 
those famous future professors), and that's why I'd prefer Pynchon over 
Joyce any day, weaknesses notwithstanding.

BTW, since we're in the business of rating here, how would you rate Lot 49? 
It isn't GR, of course, but next to GR I consider it to be Pynchon's 
strongest work - right up there with Heart of Darkness and The Great Gatsby, 
IMO.

Best,

Tore

>GR made TP look like the greatest thing since Joyce.  Subsequent novels 
>reveal, perhaps, a very >good writer and, clearly, a very smart, 
>interesting, and complex man who, nevertheless, may have
>flaw and limitations as a writer.  There's nothing mean-spirited in that 
>assessment.

>With hindsight and, particularly, with the publication of Slow Learner, one
>sees clear differences in breadth and writerly talent between him and 
>Joyce, to
>stick with that comparison.  The stories in Slow Learner were written when
>Pynchon was approximately the same age as Joyce when Joyce wrote Dubliners. 
>  No
>champion of Pynchon shold be comfortable with that comparison.  Which is 
>fine.
>  It doesn't matter, or shouldn't, whether Pynchon's not as great as Joyce.
>He is what he is, which is, on balance, awfully good.

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