chapter 6 is up for grabs.

[Mark Kohut]

Except, maybe, he found his comic, humorous mojo here? What stories of his make one laugh like this?  

To launch such a vision of history, America as ...Comedy (in literary and common parlance) starts the Pynchon we most know.



----- Original Message ----
From: "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com>
To: grladams at teleport.com
Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Sun, June 13, 2010 11:44:47 AM
Subject: Re: chapter 6 is up for grabs.

The opening scene is kind of off-putting.  Young Pynchon's struggling to find his authorial voice:  Benny the schlemiel/beat generation/Kerouac-like, disconnected drifter - Pynchon's still struggling to leave his Slow Learner mode behind.  He adopts Stencil as a second protagonist in chapter 2 - a more erudite, Henry Adams stand-in, on a Quest to find himself, just as Pynchon is.  The two are synthesized as Slothrop in GR - Schlemiel On a Quest.  The New York Beatnik/Whole Sick Crew scenes are a shtick that was already getting tired.  Pynchon tries this voice on in V., then discards it wisely, going West to develop his California voice.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: "grladams at teleport.com" <grladams at teleport.com>
>Sent: Jun 13, 2010 2:30 AM
>To: kelber at mindspring.com, pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: chapter 6 is up for grabs.
>
>Hey y'all,
> I can't do it. I just don't like V. I picked it up and tried reading it
>and I won't be a host for chapter 6. There are so many other books I need
>to read before I can even <be> well rounded enough to even comment on
>references, you know? I hope there is time to find someone else. Sorry,
>-Jill
>
>Original Message:
>-----------------
>From:  kelber at mindspring.com
>Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 10:43:04 -0400 (EDT)
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: Down with more prolegomena! Give me a V. .....
>
>
>http://www.thomaspynchon.com/covers/v_cvr.html
>
>The Picador edition is the only one that doesn't add the ".".
>
>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>>Sent: Jun 11, 2010 7:06 AM
>>To: Richard Ryan <himself at richardryan.com>
>>Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>Subject: Re: Down with more prolegomena! Give me a V. .....
>>
>>Richard Ryan asks:
>>Interesting but reference please?
>>
>>Only in my scholarly dreams do i have everything on file.....I believe it
>was in one of his letters to Cork Smith in the sixties...those ones his
>agent sold....
>>
>>But "So the letter "V" is in
>>fact a by its very nature a code for something else, something bigger
>>or other.  The inverted tip of the iceberg."
>>
>>Yes, I say whether I've invented p's remark or not....
>>
>>
>>A good Derridean would say the mark (and perhaps the Mark as well) was
>>fundamentally indeterminate.  In any case, the period appears to make
>>the letter an initial, or part of an acronym.  So the letter "V" is in
>>fact a by its very nature a code for something else, something bigger
>>or other.  The inverted tip of the iceberg.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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