COL49: Why the Negativity, TRP?

[alice wellintown]

Is he soooo negative avout Lot49? In SL Intro., again we see P ape
Adams as he looks back at the eratic learning curve of his development
as a writer even finishing his assessment of Lot49 with a direct
allusion to Adams's Education; P, like Adams,  seems to learn slow and
then forget what he learned, although he can never quite know for sure
if he's learned a god damned thing, or he come to understand that the
lessons he learne are, well, never lessons learned since learning is
never complete and certitude or mastery never possible. He sez he
seems to have forgotten what he learned. He's referring to what he
leared that made TSI a story he can't believe he wrote; it's almost
too good to be a work of young P. What he learned, he sez, is to get
out on the road and listen. In other words, TSI is a better story than
Lot49 because it was written from experience and observation and not
from the parodic encyclopedic set-piece make it literate bookishness
that we are now grappling with as we read V..

I'm not sure if this is true, but P seems to think it is, at least he
thinks it's true when he  writes SL Intro. I think he's right about
the surrealism of TSI. It messes up what is otherwise the only "short
range" (Edmund Wilson's phrase) story, and the only story close to
home--the tale is about integration on Long Island (the others--the
California books--Lot49, VL, IV) that works. Short range political
texts are not his strength. Lot 49, a "novel" could have been cut back
to a short story of decent length, like TSI, and made into an
excellent tale, but it's too tied up in theory and too thin on
character. Morever, the settings are weaker than the Baedeker's P
spoofs in V. Talk about forgetting what you've learned.

It's a frustrating read. Give it to you big readers, people who read
novels and tales and most won't trust your recomendation again. ;--)
Of course, this is one of the reasons why college profs like to stick
it on course silly-bye.

On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 9:48 PM, Mark Woollams <woollams812 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hello P-listers:
>
> (Pardon the break from V read topic)
>
> Does anyone have any thoughts on why TRP is so negative about COL49?
>
> Just wondering as I crawl back into this wonderful series of words. Its a gem
> that COL49...
>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
>