Vice, Henry James, Raymond Chandler, etc.

[Campbel Morgan]

> I'm going to need some sort of chart here. Let me get this straight: are you
> saying that James Wood is the " the prodigious enfant terrible" and that
> Thomas Pynchon is " the old yet terrible king of infantile and hysterical
> realism?" Because if you are, then you're simultaneously putting out a crude
> insult and a specious parallelism. I mean, what epic battle? On one side is
> one of those lit-crit types who's applying a rigid template to a canonic
> author who got there by breaking templates. And on the other is an author
> whose stylistic affiliations owe little, at this juncture, to those models
> you so clearly suffer from the sorts of fan-boydum you accuse p-listers of.
> Pynchon owes at least as much to Chuck Jones cartoons, James Joyce's
> internal dialogs, Raymond Chandler plots and similes and Times of London
> advertisements as he does to Henry James and Henry Adams. Again, applying a
> modernist template to a postmodern author is flat out stupid.

You must know that "canonic authors" do not get to be canonic authors
without literary critics, and that, to take but one example,
Weisnberger, author of _A GR Companion: Sources and Contexts for
Pynchon's Novel_ as well as a study of American Satire (can't recall
the title ... read it years ago, it's fabulous) and articles,
journals, reviews, including a very positive review of Dwight Eddins's
_Gnostic Pynchon_, is responible for advancing the academic and
critical reputation of TRP.
And, while you are not, obviously, an academic involved in advancing
the reputation of TRP or teaching his works to those who do or may
teach his works, you can not fail to understand that this "critical
industry" is a far more important, essentail in fact, to the success
of TRP than his fan club readers. Now, I'm not dismissing or
discrediting the non-professionl, non-academic reader of TRP's work,
far from it. But only pointing out that there is a difference and that
the literary critic is far more importnat to the success of TRP's
work. Now, that you don't like literary criticism is beside the point.
But, as a person who spends and inordinate number of hours reading and
discussing his works on this listserve, you should at least consider
reading some of it so that your condemnation of the works of the
canon-makers will not read like so much blubbering bile and brazen
bullshit. Seek first to understand, to read and comprehend before you
critique. It's a basic rule of literary criticism. Try following it.
You might be surprized how a simple rule like this one can improve
your discussions and arguments.


> Do you always  measure "importance" with somebody else's critical yardstick?
> And if so, if you were using your own critical yardstick instead of someone
> else's— just say what 's on your mind by expressing your own thoughts
> without the cover of Mr. Wood, choosing your own examples, making
> illustrative examples from the texts themselves—then what would you be
> saying?

The idea is that the the number and variety of critical works on TRP
are one measure of his importance and his influence. Of course, as
noted above, the canonical works (a term that went out of fashion a
long time back), are "made" by the critics. Also, reputations rise and
fall on the critical current and the long and short waves that roll
through the academy. Wood, like it or not, is the most important and
most influential young critic in America. And, his reputation is
riding high. Pynchon has been the most influential and important
author of American fiction written  about and taught in the academy.
It's a clash that is serving both men, if not equally, well.


>
> Maybe, but if that's the case, then where's the links? I'm not saying that
> providing links to online resources is absolutely required at the P-list but
> it is pretty much de-rigueur. Kinda like taking off your shoes before
> entering a Japanese home.

There are several provided on line. Type it into a search engine and
choose the one you prefer to read.


>
>> Excellent points on HJ and how Pynchon "copies" HJ in AGTD.
>
> And about 150 other, vastly different, prose styles including various
> emergent pulp fictions from the turn of the previous century, children's
> novels like "Tom Swift" and articles from the New York Times, circa 1907.

Yes. But HJ is the thread, the argument here, so it's fitting.

>
>> Fascinating factoid: HJ was writing a novel about time travel when
>> time ran out on him.
>
> Too bad we don't have that book.

Agrred.

>
>> Well, I hear he's hanging with his Chum Santos
>> Dumont in a heavenly harbor just outside of Grace.
>
> Please be so kind as to cite the source of this mythoid.

It's a joak. You probably don't recall that the French Brasillian
tinkerer Santos-Dumont, one of those, in the USA anyway, kinda Tesla
type figures who is overshadowed by the Wright Brothers, is mentioned
in AGTD and I think he was a friend of HJ.

>
>> PS I still find reading of American fiction, Wood is a Brit living in
>> the US, as evolving from Brithish novels (Fielding, Dickens) absurd.
>> While our declearation of literary independence was delayed, we did
>> win independence. And, while we also had the exchange authors HJ,
>> Eliot, the lost gen and so on, we can trace Pynchon through American
>> Literature. The argument, and it's not mine, it has been around since
>> GR was published, and I was just a little kid then, that GR is
>> indebted to Moby-Dick is solid. That M&D, not AGTD, is Pynchon's
>> Confidence Man is also in the academic literature.
>>
>> PPPPPSSSSS  Now I'm pissing, but the ironies in this battle between
>> Pynchon and Wood are wonderful; both are compassionate conservative
>> types
>
> Whoa, dude. Calling Pynchon a "compassionate conservative" makes the bile
> rise in my throat.

Sorry about that. Got milk? .

>
>> who distrust nostalgia and religion, but are nearly reactionary
>> in their need to defy the gnostic machine of numbing dehumaization.
>
> Please explain what a "gnostic machine" is.


Oh Jeez, are you kidding me. Did you read GR? Try it. It's great.