The Mechanical Bride Thread

[Mark Kohut]

Yes, I too always disliked and avoided reading The Mechanical Bride back when I was young and stupid....I guess I thought the title some kind of positive...and was too ...."simply human" to like the concept.....but not
humanly smart enough to even finish V. back then and see how it might not be a positive.
when older....I have thounght of V. when I've heard the title when older but have hardly heard it until alice (and Doug M. before him in praising McLuhan in gneral) have been using it.....

Now it is on my reading list...

--- On Wed, 2/24/10, Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: The Mechanical Bride Thread
> To: "P-list" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Wednesday, February 24, 2010, 7:35 PM
> I liked Medium and Message, and
> Medium and Massage, and Gutenberg Galaxy,
> they were pretty ok in my book.  Lots of interesting
> facts, an overarching
> vision of some usefulness in conceptualizing the Zeitgeist,
> and an
> idiosyncratic redefinition of common words ("hot", "cool")
> a la Lacan
> eg, in service
> of theory...which is always fun, it sets the book apart
> from the quotidian and
> reveals the amibitious nature of the project...
> 
> I think it was Tom Wolfe who did a piece on McLuhan and
> used the pervasive theme that McLuhan was living out the
> dreams of every English Lit professor who ever lusted after
> the limelight...
> 
> but anyway, the title of Mechanical Bride - I could never
> bring myself
> to read that.  Anybody else find that title really
> offputting?
>