Pynchon's reply

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

Once again - I'm in awe, Otto.

Please take your time, don't exhaust yourself.

I'm all for speculative readings. What I don't like are arrogant
readings that claim to have access to the truth. "Those Who Know,
Know" kind of readers who reduce a text to what they think is the
Proper Authorial Meaning without which the text would make no
sense at all.

As for E.D. Hirsch, his
"Validity in Interpretation (1967) and The Aims of Interpretation
(1976) argue that the author's intention must be the ultimate
determiner of meaning against many new critical and postmodernist
claims to the contrary. Hirsch proposed the distinction between
"meaning" (as intended by the author) and "significance" (as
perceived by a reader or critic)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.D._Hirsch
(Had to read "ViI" for my Comp.Lit. degree decades ago. I have -
perhaps actively - forgotten how E.D. filters the adequate meaning
from the books he reads.)

I hope I'm misremembering. It's been several years since I read
the CH essay.


Heikki

On Wed, 20 May 2009, Otto wrote:

> I'm typing my ass off since yesterday and I can't tell the "i" from
> the "o" on the keyboard anymore...before it went out of order the
> scanner simply just left the rest of the text, the "Notes", and 'Works
> cited' unscanned so I have to type it down.
>
> Got to work tonight so I don't know but if I make it today but by
> tomorrow the plain text without the footnotes should be available
> here:
>
> http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/magiceye.htm
> (I've just uploaded what I've got until know, please check again the next days)
>
> I don't know what you mean by "monereductive" but to me Charles
> Hollander's essay "Pynchon, JFK and the CIA: Magic Eye Views of The
> Crying of Lot 49" isn't more speculative than most of the other stuff
> at the "Pynchon Notes" or here at *this* place.
>
> Otto
>
> 2009/5/19 Heikki Raudaskoski <hraudask at sun3.oulu.fi>:
> >
> >
> > Is "Pynchon, JFK and the CIA" available online anymore?
> >
> > Would just like to check if the article is as monoreductive as I
> > recall; as E.D. Hirschian as I recall.
> >
> > I've got nothing against Chuck Hollander, personally. Met him in
> > passing at the Valletta conference and found him a most likeable,
> > well, dude.
> >
> >
> > Heikki
> >
>