Does Pynchon Produce Only 'Masterworks'?

[Mark Kohut]

Considered opinion was that TRP had dough, lotsa royalties and grants after GR.....
He had been working on M & D, at least, since sometime after GR, John Leonard stated and probably AtD 
as well---"insider rumors of a BIG book"...

Scope, yes...Telescopic, microscopic....epic scope.

 


----- Original Message ----
From: rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
To: János Székely <miksaapja at gmail.com>
Cc: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>; "Carvill, John" <john.carvill at sap.com>; Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com>; pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Tuesday, July 7, 2009 3:05:23 PM
Subject: Re: Does Pynchon Produce Only 'Masterworks'?

maybe VL was Pynchon getting his sea-legs back after a 17 yr absence
or more likely, he needed some dough

what is evident in every book is Pynchon's unlimited scope as a
writer--no one comes close in tackling disparate histories, styles,
characters, genres, themes, disciplines, etc. whether light, heavy

rich

On 7/7/09, János Székely <miksaapja at gmail.com> wrote:
> I hope it's not a spoiler to say I think IV is closer to perfection,
> to say the least, than VL.
> Well, "light" (at least on first reading). Remember, Rossini is
> "light" compared to Beethoven.
>
> János
>
> 2009/7/7 David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>:
>> V. is a difficult book to follow, but less so than GR, and for similar
>> reasons.  They both revolve around an abstract theme/object/person.  But
>> the
>> episodes in neither are "tenuously connected" - they are connected
>> by chronologies that are often hidden and require the reader to make the
>> connections.  And they are connected by abstract themes and intentional
>> conundrums. That's why it's hard to understand what message or meaning the
>> author intends.  I am much more interested personally to what I see as
>> their
>> contemplations on universal issues than Pynchon's novels that are much
>> more
>> specifically political and less abstract - my personal taste.  That's also
>> why Beckett's trilogy is one of my favorite literary works (Becket also
>> happens to be extremely funny, like Pynchon).
>>
>> But I don't think VL is anywhere as deeply developed than any of the books
>> that came before it.  I'm guessing that's the same reason that the
>> reviewer
>> calls IV "throwaway," meaning "lightweight," something I don't look
>> forward
>> to in reading Pynchon
>>
>> David Morris
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 10:32 AM, Carvill, John <john.carvill at sap.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> People can go ahead and get bored!
>>>
>>> I take your point, but I think I could easily conunter your argument by
>>> saying, look, V. is (structure-wise) just a bunch of tenuously connected
>>> episodes, jumping randomly around from one time period and location to
>>> another, and you could quite easily shuffle many of the chapters around
>>> with
>>> no real positive or negative effect on the coherence of the book as a
>>> whole.
>>>
>>> If I were escaping the proverbial burning building, and having harvested
>>> a
>>> mumber of other Pynchon books, had to quickly grap either V. or Vineland
>>> just before I dived clear of the flames, it would be a tough call. For
>>> what
>>> it's worth, I found V. an incredibly tough read first time round,
>>> certainly
>>> it was the hardest to read of all P's books, for me. A second reading was
>>> easier, but by then I'd read ll Pynchon's other books.
>>>
>>> <<People are going to get bore with this conversation, but here goes
>>> anyway.
>>>
>>> V's structure kept changing centers, in locations, times and main
>>> characters, constantly.  The most constantly changing character being the
>>> many incarnations of V. and her myriad of different stories and
>>> locations.
>>> And one's not too sure that they are one being until the end (and even
>>> then
>>> they can hardly be literally so).  But even with all these characters and
>>> stories, nothing ever seems extraneous.
>>>
>>> VL by contrast, is mostly a chronological story centered around one
>>> family
>>> with numerous flashbacks and a few secondary characters and their stories
>>> and histories.  Seems pretty straightforward to me.>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>