The flattened American landscape of minor writers

[Guy Ian Scott Pursey]

Thanks Tore. That's the essay I was thinking of - alongside JR, he lists
a few other books he couldn't finish because he didn't feel they kept to
their "contract", Mason & Dixon being one of them. It was an interesting
essay but a pretty weak argument compared with say DFW's more in-depth
analysis* of theorists like Jameson (and I got the feeling DFW actually
finished all the books he was talking about).

Of all the Philip Roth books I've read, my favourite is The Counterlife.
Roth himself said (in an interview I believe) he was deliberately trying
to "tear up" the "contract" between writer and reader with that book.
Coincidental that this term should appear again?

And, if we take Franzen's attitude to be commonplace, is his
"status"/"contract" divide indicative of a public perception a new
high/low culture of sorts, despite that fact that authors like Pynchon
set out to blur the original distinction?

Guy
*Think it's called "On American Usage" or something... It's in Consider
the Lobster anyway.


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
Behalf Of Tore Rye Andersen
Sent: 27 February 2009 08:50
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: RE: The flattened American landscape of minor writers



Guy Pursey wondered:
 
 
> If Mason & Dixon was too difficult for Jonathan Franzen then what are 
> we to expect of a writer like McEwan?

and malignd replied:

> This is very unlikely. Whatever you think of McEwan and Franzen, 
> unintelligent they are not. If Franzen said that, he likely mumbled it

> over a tongue stuck in his cheek.
 
Not necessarily. If we read Franzen's statement in light of the essay
"Mr. Difficult," his vicious putdown of William Gaddis, his use of the
word "difficult" carries a lot of weight, and is hardly tongue-in-cheek.
 
When Franzen calls a work "difficult," he does not only mean that it is
"hard to read" - rather, he means that it is shit. In "Mr. Difficult"
he draws a distinction between "Status authors" (writers like Joyce,
Pynchon, and Gaddis who write merely to show off) and "Contract authors"
(writers like himself and Tolstoy who aim to please the reader).
Contract authors are good, Status authors are shit. This may sound like
a parody of an argument, but I'd say that it's a pretty accurate
representation of Franzen's ideas in this essay, where his main argument
for pissing all over Gaddis is his own inability to finish JR. You may
call this sort of argument many things. Intelligent it is not.
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