How people think of Pynchon these days . . . .

[alice wellintown]

It's not like anyone wants to be an insider now. Not even your hard
core convert to Americanism shored against the ruins of these
bankrupt, wasted, and polluted shores. It's romantic to be on the
margins. We are all of us, though we often deny it,  castaways
floating on Queequeg's coffin. Hell, we've elected, not a kingly
common dragged up from the pepples and thrust upon a war horse and
ridden hard to heroism and jacksonian democracy, but a son of Africa,
Harvard, and Hawaii.

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 2:50 PM, Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:
> Believe me, as a native Californian, there is no such thing as a
> California insider. Hell, if you move 50 miles, you have to start all
> over. Might 's well be from Maine. Probably a response to the
> continual influx of population from other states, countries,
> continents, (planets? dimensions?). Who knows where some of 'em come
> from. Fact remains, in California we're all outsiders. Part of why I'm
> a Dakotan these days. Still an outsider, but at least there's a reason
> for it now.
>
> Regardless of all that, this Ken Johnson guy might be a creation of
> Ayn Rand. His affectation as art critic is pretty vapid. But, hey, he
> knows that there is such a person as Thomas Pynchon who sometimes
> writes characters out of California "subculture," and he feels
> altogether justified dropping the name to make himself sound mart.
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 1:20 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> This article isn't a "NYTs perspective."  It's a blatant name-dropping
>> hook attempting to allude to depth.  The only hook between Pynchon and
>> Wiley is that both burst onto the scene from early 70's California.
>> That, and IV's California setting.  Wiley seems a fine artist, but
>> neither he nor Pynchon are "California Outsiders" in any real sense.
>> Both are insiders with 70's early fame.
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 12:13 PM, Robert Mahnke <rpmahnke at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Interesting that (at least there) the NYT sees Pynchon as a Californian outsider, rather than adopting him as a native.
>>>
>>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/arts/design/29wiley.html?_r=1&ref=arts
>>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> "liber enim librum aperit."
>