P defends V. ...

[Mark Kohut]

unless the Invisible Baloon Man lifts me away, I'll be there......

And, after seconding, I want to remind......V. did win a publishing award, Wm 
Faulkner Award for Best First Novel, that was (still is) a high-quality one. 
Higher quality than the Pulitzer, I say.  [The Pulitzer takes dead aim at 
mediocrity and seldom misses---Wm Gass]... 

In the sixties, Cormac McCarthy's first novel also won.....as did Robert 
Coover's Origin of the Brunists......and others I once looked up and, like 
Pynchon, promptly forgot....



----- Original Message ----
From: "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Mon, August 30, 2010 10:31:13 AM
Subject: Re: P defends V. ...

Yikes, just plowed through way too many previously unread e-mails to discover 
high levels of vituperativeness and threats and encouragements of leave-taking 
from the group read.

First of all, sorry, Joseph, I pushed the idea of an end-of-summer break because 
it seemed voices were dwindling and some people had fallen behind and needed 
catch-up time.  Plus, the last week or so of summer has a tendency to lure 
people away from their computers in favor of walks on the beach, the dropping 
off of one's youngest at college (sob!), etc.  We start up on the 6th with 
Chapter 6.

Second, I hope no one will be driven from the read (or leave of their own 
volition) by the degenerating tone of what started out as a discussion about P's 
attitude towards V.  Personally, I tend to agree with Alice/Terrence's 
preference of V over IV.  On the other hand, during the group read of IV, Robin 
certainly helped me see it in a better light than I had during my first reading.

I've always seen the SL Intro as an honest self-critique, with some 
fishing-for-compliments motivation tossed in.  I disagree with P's disparagement 
of COL49.  I love that book.  My daughter (20) just read it and also loved it.  
It's got to be daunting for authors to lose control over their published work, 
but that's the collateral damage of publishing.  Doris Lessing was incredibly 
pissed off that readers loved The Golden Notebook for being a feminist tract, 
something she had had no intention of writing.  I also like V, though there are 
many parts (specifically the Whole Sick Crew) that I dislike.  I like the 
audacity (Obama doesn't own that word)of the young author's experiment, even if 
it partially, or even mostly failed.  Most of those reading the novel when it 
first came out must have wanted to hear more from this voice.  The dialogue may 
have been weak, but there are still many fine classic Pynchon passages sprinkled 
throughout the book.  It's certainly worth an archaeological dig of a group read 
to find those treasures.  Hope we can all (all of us!) reconvene on September 
6th to continue the pursuit.

Laura