The flattened American landscape of minor writers

[Michael Bailey]

Guy Ian Scott Pursey wrote:
>
>
> 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?

one of the little threadettes that I cherished in JR was "decline from
status to contract"
- funny that this distinction should play in a pejorative review of Gaddis.
In JR it kept cropping up and in my mind signaled a sort of shift in
human relations -
like, you are somebody in a certain type of society, whereas in
another sort of society you are just somebody who does certain things
for which you are paid...