Bloom, from 1994, on Pynchon canonically, WTF?

[Mark Kohut]

Weegee    RT @sarahw Harold Bloom is "gravely ill" per the Yale English Department. http://bit.ly/5zZRZ4 

--- 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.
>