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

[Joseph Tracy]

I had some similar thoughts about the timing. And there is some  
impressive insight in Hollander's essays. In the end every reader  
will take Pynchon's work differently. Still,  why is Pynchon putting   
down this guy who portrays him as a mysterious literary genius?   
Maybe all P is really saying is that his characters are not just  
stand-ins for ideas, which  is one of the apparent characteristics of  
Mannippean satire.  Sometimes it is hard to separate these things in  
the real world , where people come to seem like caricatures of their  
ideas. I think this is part of what Pynchon has avoided by his  
reclusiveness and Dylan by assuming one mask after another.



On May 15, 2009, at 9:54 AM, Michael Bailey wrote:

>  Joseph Tracy wrote:
>> Thanks for that. The letter does seem like mostly a put down, in  
>> the nature
>> of  'you're such a clever fellow, why not write your own books.'  
>> and saying
>> the interpretation game goes too far, especially in the pursuit of  
>> a secret
>> code in the historic  and literary research that will unlock the true
>> meaning.
>>
>
> well, yes but...if it was 1981, that was 1/2 way between
> GR and Vineland - how far can you go into a forest..
>  perhaps he was really feeling that way.
> the stories he was referring to were eventually published as Slow
> Learner, right?
> In the preface he doesn't seem all that impressed with them himself,
> and comes off right sincere, I thought.
>
> so, Mr Hollander caught him at a time when he had had lots of time to
> find fault with his last book, and long before he had any excitement
> about his next book.
> What's more, Mr Hollander's essays, whether or not you agree with
> them, are highly erudite and well researched.  Reading them, somebody
> with a bent for writing stories would probably wonder why Mr H didn't
> haul off and write some...maybe not at that point fully appreciating
> what he himself had already achieved, how high he had set the bar,
> floccinaucinihilipilificating the difficulty, the worth - "the
> achieve, the mastery of the thing"
>
> good thing he apparently listened - eventually - to the various
> parties urging him on
>
>
>
> -- 
> "For the moment not caring who you're supposed to be registered as.
> For the moment anyway, no longer who the Caesars say you are." - GR, p
> 136