Pynchon/Roth/Bellow/Updike on the 1960s

[malignd at aol.com]

<<The current Vineland discussion, and the Updike/McEwan/Roth thread, 
made me think it would be interesting to read an in-depth analysis of 
how Roth, Pynchon, Bellow, and Updike dealt with the 'revolutions' of 
the 1960s.>>

Much as I loved him, he wasn't in a category with the above purely as a 
novelist, but Mailer's the guy of that generation who was generally 
most interesting about the sixties.


-----Original Message-----
From: Carvill John <johncarvill at hotmail.com>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 5:44 am
Subject: Pynchon/Roth/Bellow/Updike on the 1960s






The current Vineland discussion, and the Updike/McEwan/Roth thread, 
made me
think it would be interesting to read an in-depth analysis of how Roth, 
Pynchon,
Bellow, and Updike dealt with the 'revolutions' of the 1960s.

Bellow - not for the first or last time - courted controversy and 
accusations of
racism - with Mr Sammler's Planet. Updike, in 'Rabit Redux', came 
unstuck when
trying to depict a decade he clearly felt adrift in - page afetr page 
of Skeeter
reading to Jill and Rabbit went noewhere. Roth's 'American Pastoral' 
began
beautifully, but imho got bogged down in all the Angela 
Davis/Weathermen
allusions and never really recovered - to my mind it was difficult to 
be sure
what Roth was saying, and re-reading the book made me think this 
uncertainty
extended to Roth himself, though maybe that was the point?20Pynchon, of 
course,
produced Vineland, which is currently being discussed.

Anyway, there's a Master's Thesis proposal for somebody....

Allison: I'm in the midst of doing my thesis.

Alvy Singer: On what?

Allison: Political commitment in twentieth century literature.

Alvy Singer: You, you, you're like New York, Jewish, left-wing, 
liberal,
intellectual, Central Park West, Brandeis University, the socialist 
summer camps
and the, the father with the Ben Shahn drawings, right, and the really, 
y'know,
strike-oriented kind of, red diaper, stop me before I make a complete 
imbecile
of myself.

Allison: No, that was wonderful. I love being reduced to a cultural 
stereotype.

Alvy Singer: Right, I'm a bigot, I know, but for the left.





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