Bloom, from 1994, on Pynchon canonically, WTF?

[Mark Kohut]

Well, a reading I can get.....thanks.....makes sense to me the way you put it AND I do know Borges' Kafka and his Precursors but thought that Bloom would have made that allusion more clear...

But, your take on Bloom seems smart as well therefore why he put it this way.....

He also repeats himself, as we know, and parts of this book are cut-and-pasted from essays and other books and/or vice versa.........so, maybe he left out what gave it Borgesian sense........... 

--- On Thu, 1/14/10, malignd at aol.com <malignd at aol.com> wrote:

> From: malignd at aol.com <malignd at aol.com>
> Subject: Re: Bloom, from 1994, on Pynchon canonically, WTF?
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Thursday, January 14, 2010, 6:21 PM
> I think the word "uncanny" is the
> tip-off that there is no typo.  Bloom suggests that
> TCL49 feels more to him like the predecessor of Miss
> Lonelyhearts than what is the case, i.e., the
> opposite.  It's an idea lifted from Borges's story
> Kafka and his Precursors, if I have that title correctly.
> 
> That he doesn't go into detail makes it, to me, a
> rhetorical toss-off that he'd rather not have to discuss,
> sort of like a pot insight.  I think Bloom has reached
> the point where he thinks he can make such delphic comments
> because he's Bloom and leave it to the drones to figure it
> out.  I have read both books numerous times and don't
> know what he's talking about except in the sense of figuring
> out and deciding for myself what that might be.
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Thu, Jan 14, 2010 9:04 am
> Subject: Bloom, from 1994, on Pynchon canonically, WTF?
> 
> 
> I was recently given a copy of Bloom's "The Western Canon".
> Thanks to bcc hereon. Anyway, and forgive if this has long
> been posted, commented on and reposted, Bloom writes (p.
> 486): "Pynchon's best work can be said to marryS. J.
> Perelman and Nathaniel West--remember, this is before "M
> & D" and "Against the Day"---but the canonical potential
> of "The Crying of Lot 49" depends more on our uncanny sense
> that it is being imitated by "Miss Lonelyhearts".....???What
> does he mean here since "Miss Lonelyhearts" was written
> before TCof L49????.....My read is that he means that Oedipa
> is as if she were the character Miss Lonelyhearts in that
> novel searching for her answers? But, quite a stretch and he
> would have said that more clearly.Or, do we have a
> copyediting mistake? (Book is latest edition of the
> paperback) Should read 'is imitating' Miss
> Lonelyhearts????  But, that would be a major strike
> against its canonization in Bloom's terms.  Or is
> 'being intimated' by "Miss Lonelyhearts" what he means? --he
> does italicize showing he is referring to the work. Bloom
> does think "Miss Lonelyhearts" a classic, but a minor one in
> the overarching canon, I believe.
>