P defends V. ...

[Ian Livingston]

> .....the best readers try to find where in the text IS the author,
> if anywhere.......................

...And, of course, the answer is, "everywhere."


On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 10:07 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Robin writes:
> "I'm going to throw out a despicable theory—find a passive-voiced central figure
> in a Pynchon novel, look for echos of the author. Zoyd, Slothrop, Benny, Doc,
> Mucho Maas."
>
> NOT despicable at all.....but a pattern-finding GRAND UNIFIED FIELD THEORY, so
> to allude...................
>
> And when you write "echoes", you have not gone too far.......
>
> From Shakespeare thru Joyce to T.S. Eliot---who famously said his poems had none
> of himself in them......(although at least one reader who knew him
> said......The Wasteland is not about Modern Civilization.....it's about his
> marriage....).....the best readers try to find where in the text IS the author,
> if anywhere.......................
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Sent: Mon, August 30, 2010 11:17:42 AM
> Subject: Re: P defends V. ...
>
> On Aug 30, 2010, at 7:31 AM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
> Terri can come back any time he wants to.
>
> Apparently Alice is dead.
>
>> 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.
>
> I needed it, thanks.
>
>> 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.
>
> Looks like my first post on that subject is simultaneously premature and
> redundant.
>
>> 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.
>
> Please try to understand, I have been attempting to absorb "V." for FORTY years,
> I always felt that maybe I'm not smart enough to "get" "V." At least now I am
> understanding why it has been impossible for me to get into "that book," the
> very real possibility that the book is simply not engaging.
>
>> 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.
>
> I don't think I have a muddled misreading of the SL intro. I believe that the
> author, by his expressed deliberate confusion and ambivalence over CoL49,
> acknowledges that something happened:
>
>     "this last story can be traced to ordinary nostalgia for this time
>     in my life, for the writer who seemed then to be emerging, with
>     his bad habits, dumb theories and occasional moments of
>     productive silence in which he may have begun to get a
>     glimpse of how it was done."
>
> There's a few moments in CoL49 where the young author gives real glimpses of how
> it's done. During my last attempt at "V.", a few years ago, Mondaugen's Story
> gave me a few glimpses of how it's done. It's safe to say that Benny's
> re-emergence to the street strikes me as a fine example of how it's not done.
>
>> 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 think Pynchon was pissed that he had come to the point where he needed to come
> up with quick writing for cash. Probably bruised his ego. At the same time,
> yes—the writer really does seem to be emerging,
>
> I'm going to throw out a despicable theory—find a passive-voiced central figure
> in a Pynchon novel, look for echos of the author. Zoyd, Slothrop, Benny, Doc,
> Mucho Maas.
>
> Somewhere in 1964, Young Tom really heard "She Loves You" for the first time.
> Musta been something in the water.
>
>> I also like V, though there are many parts (specifically the Whole Sick Crew)
>>that I dislike.
>
> Well, like Dixon said to Mason—"Amuse me."
>
>> I like the audacity (Obama doesn't own that word)of the young author's
>>experiment, even if it partially, or even mostly failed.
>
> For the most part, the use of language is crap. One of the reasons why I boiled
> over at Terri's slagging of Inherent Vice is that Pynchon's ear for the sounds
> of L.A. speak, improbably enough, is so accurate, so honed to the precise
> attributes of the creeping imbecility that was spreading like a fog upon L.A.
> It's true that a lot of the dialog was lifted from non-stop media outlets,
> echoed incessantly, but that's the point, isn't it? Whatever, the author has
> wonderful control over tone in his most recent novel, seems to have no control
> over tone in the first.
>
>> Most of those reading the novel when it first came out must have wanted to hear
>>more from this voice.
>
> I'm certain that in the context of 1963 it came out of left field.
>
> In a way, JFK's assassination was the author's good-luck charm, much like for
> the Beatles. The timing was right, the American Left was ready for the great
> intellectual voice of vast paranoid systems and Pynchon provided those
> conspiratorial webs, even if he wasn't exactly on board with activities that
> might involve missing an episode of Gilligan's Island or two.
>
>> 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
>
> I'll be there, like it or not.
>
>
>
>



-- 
"liber enim librum aperit."