Well I just reread Vineland and the news is still bad...

[Dustin Iler]

How about actually discussing AtD? Cite a few passages perhaps, explain what 
you dislike with some examples? I agree with you that it often seems futile 
on this list try and sway anyone towards a negative reading of Pynchon. 
Since you've tagged me as a blind devout of sorts I'd like to say that 
Vineland doesn't appeal to me in the same manner of Pynchon's other novels, 
and that it very much has to do with the novel's setting and the characters 
who exist in that setting--though I still find the prose superb.

When all one has to say about a 1,000 page novel is that it sucks, or is 
stupid, it certainly APPEARS that one is not reading the book. There has to 
be something you like, and of course there may very well be much you 
dislike. I'd just like to see people show what they dislike more often than 
merely say that the characters are dumb or the plot stinks. As someone has 
already asked: which characters (why?) which plots (why?) etc.


>From: Ray Easton <kraimie at kraimie.net>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: Well I just reread Vineland and the news is still bad...
>Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:39:58 -0500
>
>
>On Tuesday, Jun 12, 2007, at 15:18 US/Central, Dustin Iler wrote:
>
>>Now, if you haven't reached that part of the novel, then you aren't 
>>reading the same book as me, or others who have managed to get there. All 
>>I can say is keep on reading, and back your claims up with some reading, 
>>otherwise it appears---at least from my computer screen---like I'm reading 
>>the compositions of an illiterate armed only with no sense and a keyboard.
>
>It would not have occur to me to call you names because you find AtD 
>brilliant.  It would not occur to me to say that you have no literary taste 
>or sense because your view of this novel differs from mine.  I guess my 
>comment about arguing with Catholics was apropos after all.
>
>But since you find name-calling an appropriate mode of discussion... I have 
>read the entire fucking thing, you idiot!
>
>Ray
>

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