#44: Larry's Parents and Grandparents

[rich]

my opinion is that Pynchon's strengths lay in the melancholic romantic
longing for what history we've chosen for ourselves (interspersed w/
alot of roadrunner zaniness)
IV is all zany and the romantic longing is totally absent leaving much
of the novel imho dull
sure Doc's parents are nice but I never thought I'd equate anything
Pynchon wrote with "niceness"
imagine if GR was all Roger Jessica and how quickly tiresome that would get




On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 11:28 PM, Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> I don't understand your problem with Elmina and Leo.   Homer and Marge are
> pretty likable, too, in their own way - people have watched them for years.
>    Somehow I can't see the portrayal of the Sportellos as being "the most
> innovative experimentation of the author."    Leo and Elmina are a nice
> touch - they're homey and it's satirized and it's okay with me.   They add a
>  personal and human dimension to the character of Doc - he's more grounded
> or something.   ("Hippies did not issue forth from the north side of trees"
> - that sort of thing.)
>
> Bekah
>
>
> On Oct 4, 2009, at 8:01 PM, alice wellintown wrote:
>
>> John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> While I think Elmina and Leo seem relatively likeable,
>>
>> Despite attack after attack on the traditional and conventional
>> character in genre after genre ...despite the zapping of traditional
>> and conventional plots, settings, themes, moods, tones, narratives ...
>> readers continue to Stencilize with remarkably conservative
>> expectations the most innovative experimentation of the author.
>>
>> The novel is not all that interesting and it's prose style is flat
>> and, for most of the read, ugly. Yet, there are reasons to analyze it.
>> Fitting it to conventional or traditional modes is not one.
>
>
>
>