Pynchon vs. Pynchon

[Ya Sam]

The recent attack on AtD by people who undoubtedly skimmed the book or just 
'swallowed' it to meet the deadline might be just a bad case of verbal 
diarrhoea. It's also such an ego-boosting enterprise for a revewer to trash 
a Pynchon book. "Tell us a story granma Michiko! OK, little ones, once upon 
a time I wrote a hatching review of Thomas Pynchon's novel..." Who would 
remember Kakutani in half a century from now? More or less intelligent or 
coherent reviews will start appearing at least in a month from now.  Whether 
it's praise or criticism, it should have a decent level of argumentation, 
not the asinine claims like 'it's too big, I can't read, ergo it's crap' or 
'it's not Gravity's Rainbow II' (I personally don't want GR II, neither I 
would like to read Ulysses II or Crime and Punishment II (hey there is a 
Catch 22 #2 of sorts, does it compare??). Yes GR is his crowning achievement 
so far, but he's trying to tread new terrains with his other novels, 
therefore they should be accepted on their own terms. So far I've read only 
25 pages of AtD (thank you, you know who :-) and I liked them a lot.

Pynchon said 'let the reader decide, let the reader beware', so I, as a 
reader, will decide for myself what to make of AtD when it finally arrives.


>From: helms2 <helms2 at clemson.edu>
>To: Jim Gilbert <posthorn at gmail.com>
>CC: Pynchon List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: Pynchon vs. Pynchon
>Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 12:53:33 -0500
>
>Jim Gilbert wrote:
>>Here's what I wanna know, and these recent reviews bring it to the 
>>forefront -- why is it impossible for these reviewers and neo-critics to 
>>appreciate Against the Day for the novel it is, without comparing it 
>>(positively or negatively) to Pynchon's other work? Is TP doomed to ever 
>>compete with himself and lose? Is that the price of setting so high a bar? 
>>I don't recall reading reviews of Umberto Eco's Queen Loana that felt the 
>>need to compare it to, say, Foucault's Pendulum. Why do so many people 
>>seem to be looking for "Gravity's Rainbow II"?
>Finally, somebody said it. I've heard it's getting panned for the most part 
>(but I refuse to read any of them myself just yet), and it seems a bit 
>ridiculous to me. Lot 49 is not V is not GR is not Vineland is not M&D, so 
>what's the problem? The Loana Foucault's Pendulum reference is a salient 
>one, but I get the feeling with Eco that the guy produces SO MUCH work that 
>people have learned to deal with him. If Pynchon had a book a year, some 
>fiction, some non-, then I get the feeling each might be accepted on its 
>own terms. However, since he does not and eschews public life he will 
>always be judged by GR. It's the price he pays for being a reclusive and 
>intermittent writer. And I salute him for it.

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