shades of college days

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

right after the paper hits the professor's desk,
I start realizing all the flaws...

but rather than overcorrecting, and making it suck even more,
I think I'll leave criticspace for the time being, with 
maybe a parting shot:

I think if I could choose some of the criticism
for Pynchon to take to heart

...it wouldn't be to strive for any of the 
Wood requests, because I think AtD shows them in spades

little plot but much internal story,

-- broadly speaking, each plot is fairly simple

 that was morally and aesthetically complex

-- the sum total of the character changes, the moral
implications of all the actions in AtD, sometimes right
on the page, sometimes in your head, is fairly complex

stylistically difficult and demanding, 

--- there's no paucity of long sentences, 
and I'd wager Wood himself could spin out
a better explication of the Reef quote
(ie, it didn't lend itself to easy explication,
at least, I'm not satisfied Wood plumbed its 
depths (not saying I did either))

determined to put language to some kind of challenge, 

--- the variety of argots & accents is pretty satisfying

formally lovely and alluring, 

--- lovely in form - remains to be seen but
seemed decent enough; beckoned me away from
other things strongly enough to finish in 2 weeks...
(not bad for a working stiff)

humanly serious but also humanly comic 
(I mean a book that comically investigated 
deep human motive)? 

--- there's a bit'a'that in there, eh wot?

A novel that was narrated in the internal 
voices of several different characters, 
but characters who really have their own 
voices, not just vaudeville ventriloquism?

--- I still think the prose changes around
each character in the way best suited to
that character, many of whom aren't primarily
verbal technicians...


no, the part I'd like P to consider is how
Wood's list was of people writing of their own
day.  We've got his 50s novel, his 60s novel (49
and Vineland), his 80s novel (Vineland again,
like the song Smelly Cat, it has many levels)
- what I wouldn't give for his 90s novel...

he backed way up for M&D, then came forward
for AtD, now another quantum leap & he'll
be dealing with stuff we've seen on TV again...
or, maybe not...
just a thought