FR online review

[Charles Albert]

Thank you for your kindness...

A tableau need not be without message or purpose, but I find P less didactic
than perhaps benignly pedagogic (take that, hun! - nah, there are enough
latin cognates that you probably didn't hesitate)......Though I don't mean
to suggest that my survey is exhaustive, I think as a rule, narrative toward
resolution is usually for the purpose of  illustrating moral, or axiomatic
lessons - and, this should piss some people of - it is largely the province
of "lesser" authors. It is a comforting structural device.......

But Pynchon labors, not resolution, but refraction, and dissipation (or
entropy), again, because "life" doesn't oblige the former. Without intending
to provoke ire, I continue to hold that he borrows this from, among others,
Borges, and Oakley Hall. Of the half dozen or so of the latter's books I've
read (he has become my favorite literary "guilty pleasure") the disparate
narrative threads don't tend to "resolve", and one is left with a sense of
despair when done. There is an hostile indifference to a reader's demand for
"closure".

But that is not meant to imply that there is no "message", just that it is
not revealed in the "factual" historical perspective, but rather at the
micro level of the various interpersonal relationships.....In spite of the
sense of hopelessness evident on the surface, I am certain that both Hall
and P are "hopeful romantics" - there is, amidst all the exploitation, a
sense that the game really is worth the candle.

I noted a brief speech by one of the minor characters in AtD which seemed to
distill this idea, but I am having trouble locating it. I'll keep working.


and, if I never told you - I greatly admire the enthusiasm with which you
Germans listers go at TRPs work. I cannot imagine how hard you labor for
your prize. His language, idioms, allusions are not "native" to you.  I have
long since forgiven you for the arrogance of the young German with whom I
spoke nearly 20 years ago, who insisted we have "no culture". We do, and you
show it the highest regard......Thanks kids, take a collective bow....


love,
cfa

On 1/20/07, Thomas Eckhardt <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
>
> Great post, Charles, thanks. I don't believe, though, that P's novels
> are merely tableaus of stories. There is always something more, some
> "unifying theme" perhaps, or in terms of plot, usually a quest of some
> kind or other.
>
> Yes, it is a very delightful read.
>
> Thomas
>
>
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