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

[Dave Monroe]

On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 12:12 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> 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.

Let's face it, on the one hand, we all have some interest in believing
what we want to believe about ourselves, our works, our traces, and on
the other, in having others believe as much as well ...

On the other one hand, others may on occasion come uncomfortably close
at times to the truth about us et al., and on the other other hand we
may harbor some genuine humility, and/or self-criticism, even ...