Editing Pynchon?

[Ian Livingston]

>
> Then again, Pynchon himself has claimed that there are parts of GR that even he doesn't understand, so if there's a discipline to that, it's obviously not the author's.

You strike on an interesting point here, Chris.  One of my dearest
friends is a celebrated painter.  She is often entertained to hear
what critics say as they interpret her work.  She says (to herself),
"Oh, is THAT what I meant to say?"  She claims to have little control
over the MEANING in her work, that she is merely a 'vessel' for the
work.  I've tried to persuade her to use 'conduit' instead of
'vessel', but she won't trifle over words - her meaning is clear:  she
taps something in her unconscious.  The 'discipline' and taughtness of
her work is magnificent, but her view of the discipline is in the time
at the easel, not in how she reigns in the subject matter and provides
perspective for viewing human interiors -- that is the viewer's
discipline as far as she is concerned.

Although I am not so accomplished, I can say that when I sit to write
fiction or poetry, the sense is the same for me -- that I am a conduit
facilitating the emergence of something -- a 'midwife', to bow
properly to Plato.  There is discipline involved in the revising, but
it is other than the discipline of 'getting out of the way' to let the
work happen.

I wonder where OBA might weigh in on that topic?

On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 11:50 AM, Chris
Broderick<elsuperfantastico at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I can say that I didn't think either GR or AtD were tightly disciplined novels on my first reading of them.  I still think there are things about GR that are not tightly disciplined or "part of a larger structure".  I think the same can be said for AtD.  Maybe on subsequent readings I'll end up agreeing with you.  Maybe you'll read it again and see a larger structure.  I just don't think, based on my reading of it, that I can say either way yet.
>
> Then again, Pynchon himself has claimed that there are parts of GR that even he doesn't understand, so if there's a discipline to that, it's obviously not the author's.
>
>  Chris Broderick
> www.myspace.com/christophermichaelbroderick
>
>
> "A good laugh is the best pesticide."
> -Vladimir Nabokov
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
> To: Chris Broderick <elsuperfantastico at yahoo.com>
> Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Sent: Friday, August 7, 2009 9:40:11 AM
> Subject: Re: Editing Pynchon?
>
> Categorizing Pynchon as a "picaresque novelist" seems to me an excuse
> for unlimited self-indulgence at the expense of a good novel.  It's
> possible to be picaresque and produce a disciplined novel.  I know
> some people think GR is not tightly disciplined.  I completely
> disagree.
>
> On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 11:20 AM, Chris
> Broderick<elsuperfantastico at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> 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.
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