I Love NY

[Paul Mackin]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <kelber at mindspring.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 1:45 PM
Subject: RE: I Love NY


> "The Thing from the North that retributively attacks the City" sequence in 
> ATD seems to be TRP's take on being in NYC on 9-11 -- at least that's how 
> I read it.

True and I think this supports my contention that Pynchon could novelize 
convincingly  about being a contempory New York literary worker of a certain 
age. Effects of the group trama on art or something like that.
>
> Aside from that, being an affluent Upper-West-Sider (more elect than 
> preterite, a little closer to Them than he'd like) probably doesn't play 
> very well into the themes that TRP like to explore.

Ah yes, we run into how success in the profession of novel writing can 
change one's socio-economic status away from the one the nurtured ones 
natural subject matter.

P
>
> Laura
>
> -----Original Message-----
>>From: Henry Musikar <scuffling at gmail.com>
>>Sent: Mar 27, 2009 1:10 PM
>>To: Pynchon Liste <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>Subject: RE: I Love NY
>>
>>Respectfully beg to differ slightly, Paul.  Military, drugs, founding
>>fathers WASP family history, California, and Boston are all part of OBA's
>>person history AND his horsed'oeuvres. No, not autobiographical or
>>confessional, but Pynchon qua Pynchon is in all of his writings, at least
>>his life until his move to NYC is.  Something Happened.
>>
>>Henry Mu
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Paul Mackin
>>Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 12:38 PM
>>
>>----- Original Message ----- 
>>From: "Henry Musikar"
>>
>>> Pynchon may be from Glen Cove, and has lived in NYC for a while now, but
>>> he's still a visitor from warmer climes.  Is this because of his
>>> particularly WASP and peculiarly non-public experience?  His NY theater
>>> section in ATD was through the eyes of a girl from the mid-west.  On the
>>> other hand, Philip Roth who, though from across the river, apparently
>>> loved
>>> and courted New York, but left "the city" for greener fields, like me, 
>>> but
>>> still has always has been and will remain, like me, a New Yorker:
>>>
>>>
>>http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/the-mayor-and-the-philip-roth-q
>>> uote/
>>> "The upheaval of New York had taken little more than a week. There is no
>>> more worldly in-the-world place than New York, full of all those people 
>>> on
>>> their cellphones going to restaurants, having affairs, getting jobs,
>>> reading
>>> the news, being consumed with political emotion, and I'd thought to come
>>> back in from where I'd been, to resume residence there reembodied, to 
>>> take
>>> on all the things I'd decided to relinquish - love, desire, quarrels,
>>> professional conflict, the whole messy legacy of the past - and instead,
>>> as
>>> in a speeded-up old movie, I passed through for the briefest moment, 
>>> only
>>> to
>>> pull out to come back here."
>>> http://tinyurl.com/exit-ghost
>>>
>>> Is OBA's not having written a book set in the era in which it is written
>>> because they take to long to write to ever be current, or perhaps due to
>>> not
>>> being fully engaged with the tumultuous surroundings of the city that he
>>> has
>>> chosen as his home?
>>>
>>
>>Isn't it that he is not an autobiographical type writer as is Roth?
>>
>>Doesn't write about things he has experienced directly but  rather relies 
>>on
>>
>>a lot of research.
>>
>>Some direct experience went into V.
>>
>>Probably less so in VL. He was already over 30 in 1968.
>>
>>By now of course he has lived in Manhattan long enough to longer be
>>considered a tourist.
>>
>>Would stand in good stead for writing a pretty authentic novel about the
>>life of an aging literary icon on the Upper East Side.l
>>
>>P
>>
>>> Henry Mu
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>>>
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>>>
>>
>