Now Augie March, was: TRP-related (by me at least)..from a review

[Mark Kohut]

J. M. Coetzee, in his essay on this work, sez that Bellow too was---as deep metaphoric background, not in particulars----'inspired' by the Chicago that
was such a hope for America as embodied in the Columbian Exhibition of AtD's start....


 


----- Original Message ----
From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
To: rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
Cc: "Carvill, John" <john.carvill at sap.com>; Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>; pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wed, March 24, 2010 12:43:56 PM
Subject: Re: TRP-related (by me at least)..from a review

On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 11:20 AM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I just don't think its Pynchon's strength. he can't write about real people.  why even try? I don't want to read fiction about real people.

I'm right in the middle of Bellow's "The Adventures of Augie March"
which is decidedly about "real [fictional] people."  The book has
such an even feeling.  People evolve, events happen, time moves on,
new adventures appear, but the drama level is very toned down.  The
star of this show is the first-person narrator of the title, and he's
the star mainly because every event is filtered through his
perception, and he has a pretty good opinion of himself as he looks
back on the times of his life.  Once in a while he'll describe things
in obtuse ways, but it feels right because you get the sense that
(although he doesn't jump forward in his story) that he's ended up as
a writer.

David Morris