Character (WAS: COL49 - Chap 2: San Narciso as a circuit board)

[David Morris]

I agree w/ Malignd.

Pynchon novels are the embodiment of what he calls "wrong" in SL
intro, no matter how much he protests:  "begin with a  theme, symbol
or other abstract unifying agent, and then try to force characters and
events to conform to it."

This is exactly what he does in all his novels, GR being his finest
example.  His saving grace is that he can write amazingly beautiful
prose.  His downfall is when he tries to stuff too many themes and
examples into one novel, losing focus, AtD being the most egregious
example.

David Morris

On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 4:16 PM,  <malignd at aol.com> wrote:
> He's either putting Hollander on or he's deluded.  He's certainly not describing what he writes.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com>
>When he disparages "Entropy" in his introduction to Slow Learner,  for instance, he writes:
>
> "The story is a fine example of a procedural error beginning writers are always being cautioned against. It is simply wrong to begin with a  theme, symbol or other abstract unifying agent, and then try to force characters and events to conform to it."
>
> And this idea is echoed in a letter to Charles Hollander from 1981:
>
> "[...] I don't write "novels of ideas."Plot and character come first, just like with most other folk's stuff, and the heavy thotz and capitalized references and shit are in there to advance action, set scenes, fill in characters and so forth, and the less of it I have to do, the better for me cause I'm lazy."