shades of college days

[Nicolai]

Freestyle poetry? Composition gone horribly wrong? Avant*-gardist
formatting? Do I really want to know? :aiee:

* More like "Apres", but, ah, such are the horrors of war

On 7/9/07, mikebailey at speakeasy.net <mikebailey at speakeasy.net> wrote:
>
> 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
>
>
>


-- 
- Nicolai
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