Pynchon's reply

[Dave Monroe]

On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 2:46 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm sure you know that this ian't really about Hollander.  It's (as
> usual) all about you, Hollanders correspondent.

Speak of the ...

Well, In Robt.'s case, I'm not so sure he's always been cognizant of
the difference.  I recall claims way back when that I indeed WAS The
Dude, even as I had the Dude pointing out precisely my deficiencies in
that regard offlist.  Meanwhile, I've never been able to understand
why Hollander has been so controversial here, save maybe in how
insistent he can be in his conclusions.  And, sure, he may be reaching
a bit @ times but no matter how forcefully he stands behind such
moments nonetheless, his obs., genrally clustered comfortably within
the target, are hardly negated by the occasional wild shot.  He has
definitely Contributed to the cause ...

> Meanwhile Pynchon's answer to Hollander is just full of it:  "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."  And so is
> his SL intro ""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."

Like I said, think, the accused on the stand ...

> So I guess in this case I side w/ Hollander.

Thanks for being a stand up guy in that regard.  Which is, for the
record. hardly to say that you are not in others.  I know well teh
impulse NOT to give credit where credit's due ...