Wheat, chaff, stalks, seeds

[Paul Mackin]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "alice wellintown" <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, October 25, 2009 4:59 PM
Subject: Re: Wheat, chaff, stalks, seeds


> How do these conjectures account for _Against the Day_? Was the author
> without age or wisdom when  he wrote and published his last Romance?
> Also, if the novel is an imperfect form for conveying moral truths,
> the Romance is, while by design less perfect than the imperfect novel,
> a better form if one's objective is to convey the blackest truths in
> the darkest heart of Man. So, with _AtD_, P's unloadings of layered
> stuff doesn't break the reader-writer contract; we get what we
> deserve, if not exactly what we expect. As far as a book that appeals
> to a larger audience goes, it seems this is exactly what he tried to
> do. Let us pray he never attempts this trick again; it's dangerous.
> And, beside(s) the point to booot [sic].
>

Well, Pynchon is admittedly a slow learner, some achieve wisdom earlier than 
others. That Pynchon has not hit upon the secret of populatirity is another 
issue. He is a writer of another generation. His time may have passed.  He 
is not forgotten by the current crop of literary novelists however. In 
Generosity by Richard Powers the adjuct writing instructor dreams he is in a 
Pynchon novel. The context is the formation a cartel to control the human 
genome. In Jonathan Lethem's Chronic City much of the story takes place in 
an upper east side apartment that seems "bigger on the inside than the 
outside." Incidently that apartment is pretty close by the Lexington Avenue 
B&N where the November do is to take place.

P
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 25, 2009 at 4:36 PM, Robin Landseadel
> <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
>> On Oct 25, 2009, at 1:25 PM, Paul Mackin wrote:
>>>
>>> Hey, I had a thought, Maybe Pynchon, now with the wisdom of age, has
>>> concluded that it is really impossible to put a lot of moral relevance 
>>> into
>>> anything as imperfect as a novel, so has this time out refrained from 
>>> all
>>> the deep layered stuff he normally unloads on us.
>>>
>>> He may still be just as good a writer (I think so anyway) as he ever 
>>> was,
>>> which Inherent Vice plainly demonstrates.
>>
>> Maybe he wanted a book that was accessible outside of the Academy [or 
>> cult].
>>
>>
>