Pynchon's work influences Jonathan Franzen---V. esp. maybe here

[Robert Mahnke]

Speaking Franzen and Pynchon, maybe this will be make him want to
emulate Pynchon's public persona:



    Around 8pm, two men, claiming to work for Puffin, gatecrashed the
party at the Serpentine Gallery and approached Franzen. One snatched
his glasses and escaped, before the other handed the stunned author a
ransom note and also fled into Kensington Gardens.

    The note read: "$100,000 - Your glasses are yours again!" and left
a Hotmail address.

    As news spread around an incredulous party, a police helicopter
was tasked to search for the thieves, who had fled across the
Serpentine. One of them was apprehended hiding in the bushes and
Franzen's glasses were returned to the author unharmed.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/10/05/130345995/franzen-s-glasses-stolen-100-000-ransom-demanded



On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 6:16 AM, Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> I enjoyed The Corrections and never considered Pynchon in any way.   I saw it as being some pretty good social satire,  but not all it was hyped to be.   I've got Freedom here ready to go,  but William Gibson's "Zero History" just came out yesterday and I have to get to that when I finish a very short Shirley Hazzard book (The Bay of Noon).   It'll be a week or so (maybe more)  before I get to Freedom.
>
> (I'd like to get back into V, too.)
>
> Bekah
>
> On Sep 7, 2010, at 5:19 PM, Robert Mahnke wrote:
>
>> "relied" on the New York Times
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 5:18 PM, Robert Mahnke <rpmahnke at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I was underwhelmed by The Corrections.  I thought the most effective
>>> parts of the novel were about the deterioration of the parents, a
>>> topic Franzen wrote about (even better) as memoir in The New Yorker in
>>> late August or early September of 2001.  I didn't think there was much
>>> that was interesting about his efforts to depict a broader society,
>>> and it all struck me as the sort of view of the world that one would
>>> get if one walled oneself off from the world and relief on the New
>>> York Times, though it fairness I can't now remember why.
>>>
>>> On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 10:07 AM,  <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>>>> I started, and quickly discarded Franzen's first novel, The Twenty-seventh City.  There's a gratuitous mention of Pynchon somewhere early on, and I couldn't help thinking he was an untalented Pynchon wannabe.  Haven't read anything of his since.  Is (are?) The Corrections really worth reading?
>>>>
>>>> Laura
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com>
>>>>> Sent: Sep 7, 2010 3:10 AM
>>>>> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>>>>> Subject: RE: Pynchon's work influences Jonathan Franzen---V. esp. maybe here
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> From page 67 of Franzen's Freedom:
>>>>>
>>>>> "Richard [the cool guy] was wearing a black T-shirt and reading a paperback novel with a big V on the cover."
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>
>