The flattened American landscape of minor writers

[Carvill John]

A well-reasoned post. I agree with your comments in general. I admit Pynchon may appeal to a more narrow readership, but in pure literary quality terms, or in terms of the greatness of his achievement, his historical significance, or pretty much any way you want to measure him, Pynchon surely qualifies, along with Roth, as a 'giant' of contemporary American letters, unless McEwan just meant 'giant of mainstream acclaim'.
 
As for Moorcock and Moore, I loved 'Watchmen' back in the day, and I read some Moorcock fantasy stuff when I was a kid, but when I finally got round to his supposed masterpiece, 'Mother London', I wasn't that impressed. Moore is always going on about how badly treated Moorcock is, that he doesn't get the respect or acclaim he dererves, but I think he overdoes this, to a significant extent, i.e. I don't reckon the disparity between Moorcock's worth and acclaim is anywhere near so wide as Moore evidently thinks. To compare Moorcock with Pynchon is laughable.
 
And just to settle my neck even more solidly on the chopping block, I would add that Moore's claims for his own work, and the genre of 'graphic novel' (a term Moore himself disclaims) or 'intelligent comic book' in general, are often overblown. Yes, there are some great comics, yes Watchmen is intelligent and multilayered etc., but can it really stand comparison with the best actual novels of the post-war period, with Roth or Bellow or Pynchon, with 'Herzog' or 'Humboldt's Gift', 'Gravity's Rainbow' or 'Mason & Dixon', 'The Counterlife' or 'My Life as a Man', the Rabbit Books, etc.? Surely the answer has to be, however regretfully, 'no'?
 
 


----------------------------------------
> Subject: RE: The flattened American landscape of minor writers
> Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:10:46 +0000
> From: g.i.s.pursey at reading.ac.uk
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> CC: johncarvill at hotmail.com
>
>
> Perhaps (and this is only a suggestion) McEwan finds Pynchon too
> difficult. Perhaps he is not considered as one of the peaks of American
> letters because, for writers like McEwan, he is too 'cult' and
> 'obscure'. If Mason & Dixon was too difficult for Jonathan Franzen then
> what are we to expect of a writer like McEwan?
>
> Not trying to belittle Pynchon's wide readership but it might be that
> McEwan thinks Pynchon appeals to a different (dare I say smaller?)
> readership than, say, Roth. Also Pynchon has produced far fewer books.
>
> This reminds me of something I'm sure I read Alan Moore (author of the
> Watchmen, V for Vendetta, etc) saying in an interview. He was bemoaning
> the fact that someone like Thomas Pynchon would always be recognised
> and remembered as a great writer when someone like Michael Moorcock
> would be overlooked by academia/literary historians for not being
> 'literary' enough.
>
> Sorry for paraphrasing. But my (small and perhaps irrelevant) point is
> that the same tendency to reduce areas of writing to one or a few peaks
> occurs at different levels and across all genres.
>
> Lastly, I could easily recommend a few Philip Roth books to friends and
> family, to people I know who may only read one or two books a year. This
> I can generally do without reservation. Whereas I would recommend
> Pynchon (often do in fact) but not first without warning that they might
> find the book more challenging than they're used to.
>
> My two cents (worth increasingly less in these difficult times),
> Guy
>

 

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