VL--IV Passivity, more active thoughts

[rich]

On 1/6/09, malignd at aol.com <malignd at aol.com> wrote:
>The novel, however, is not a  collaborative art form.


William Gaddis famously said on numerous occasions that he expected
his readers to bring something to a work--the writer is not supposed
to explain everything, the reader must work out things for themselves
(I think a character in JR says about the same in that novel).
So, though I won't argue with you regarding Pynchon's flat
characterizations, I would claim that novels that do not insult your
intelligence, who do not feel the need to lay it all out, who trust
their readers, is, in some certain sense, a collaborative effort.
However, the artist must be able to concoct such a mixture that would
lend itself to such personal discoveries by the reader. admittedly,
not an easy thing to do

Rich