Editing Pynchon

[Mark Kohut]

I still use a phrase I may have made up myself to talk about good fiction: Achieved Richness

"Achieved richness"......yes, way too vague in itself but 'ACHIEVED' allows conversation on aspects of structure, which I usually subsume under concepts like proportion and 'earned meanings', earned effects......it allows a way to talk about plot, suspense thereof and climax/catharsis thereof...and, not least, the writing...

Richness allows room to speak of ambition, as well as packed meaning, powerful overarching scenes and metaphors----to use non-P examples, the
Grand Inquisitor scene in Bros K, Ahab, Gregor Samsa, Huck & Jim together and/or Huck's "all right, I'll go to Hell"; Austen's interpersonal scenes, the protagonist of Coetzee's Disgrace caring for--burying one so compassionately--dogs at the end.....

I tell many who have never read it that GR is indisputably one of the richest novels ever...and it all works (although how long it took me 
to get that, I won't relate...slow reader busy guy then)and C of L49 is so
compactly suggestive......

And many who do not rate ATD as high as I do, don't think it is so 'rich'
or that it all coheres (as GR does).... and they may be right...

Which is why we should all read it again. ;-)