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

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Dostoevsky was fortunate that his greatest novel was his final one.  He had a long literary career during which he churned out a lot of inferior stuff (he had to -- he was broke)along with Crime and Punishment (his "V"?)and Notes From Underground (COL49?).  The message for budding writers?  Croak after the big one.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>Sent: Jun 13, 2007 10:10 AM
>To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: Well I just reread Vineland and the news is still bad...
>
>I am old enough to remember when early readers of GR found it 'boring' , plotless (fer sure),
>  so overwritten as to be unreadable......so it goes.
>   
>  TRP knows what Time does to the world and its judgement....(see ATD, passim).
>   
>  MK
>
>Henry Winkler <rushm0r3 at gmail.com> wrote:
>    I had the same reaction as Ray to AtD. Boring. Unlike GR, AtD was a grind. It took months to read because the writing was overripe and there was no real plot to give narrative tension. But what I was wondering, though, is why the decline in quality after GR? It's interesting to look at the publication dates of Pynchon's books: 
>   
>  V..................1963
>  CL49.............1966
>  GR................1973
>  Vineland........1990
>  M+D..............1997
>  AtD............... 2006
>   
>  Note the famous or notorious 17 year gap between GR and Vineland. WTF happened during those years people? We may never know, but one thing we do know is that the quality of Pynchon's books declined after that time. 
>   
>  Fonzi
> 
>  On 6/13/07, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:   I don't think there's any doubt that GR is superior to all other of
>Pynchon's books.  It is more dense, more intense, more poetic, much 
>more obscure and more experimental.  I think it was both a product of
>its time and of Pynchon's prime.  Also, I'm sure he's not smoking as
>much dope or dropping as much acid as he was back then.
>
>AtD doesn't suck, and mediocre Pynchon is still superior to most
>other's best.  But I still think Vineland was a big stinker.
>
>David Morris
>
>On 6/12/07, Paul Mackin < paul.mackin at verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>> On Jun 12, 2007, at 5:05 PM, robinlandseadel at comcast.net wrote:
>>
>> >  what is it that makes GR superior to AtD? 
>>
>> My sneaking suspicion is that GR ISN'T really superior to AtD, or isn't THAT much superior.
>>
>> Our disappointment with the latest book may be mostly a product of the passage of time.  Thirty five years ago Pynchon's innovative approach to fiction writing was still fresh.   It no longer is. 
>>
>
>
>
>
>       
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