Editing Pynchon?

[Chris Broderick]

Personally I'm a lot more upset when the author of a short novel decides to waste my time.  I know going into a doorstop like AtD that it is going to be digressive, and that there are going to be points where I don't have a clear sense of what is going on.  That was my experience the first time through GR, and there are still points in that novel that are a bit of a slog.  I have a hard time imaging a single 'bigger picture' when reading Pynchon, but I will say that the overarching images/metaphors in GR were more prevalent than was the case in AtD. The first sentence of AtD strikes me as a brutal irony for the reader.

What is clear about Pynchon is that he is a picaresque novelist, rather than a narrative storyteller, or a plumber of psychological depths.  He's more willing to digress for any number of reasons, serious or frivolous ("for DeMille fur henchmen can't be rowing"?), which is seen by some as anathema in the modern novel.  To expect otherwise means that you are barking up the wrong trouser leg.

Chris Broderick
www.myspace.com/christophermichaelbroderick


"A good laugh is the best pesticide."
-Vladimir Nabokov

From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Editing Pynchon?

My main beef with ATD is its scatteredness, divergences and characters
with stories that seem pointless and seem to contribute little to any
bigger picture, and the sheer number of them.  If an author is going
to ask me to spend over 1000 pages with him, I ask him to not waste my
time.