Response to Kai Lorentzen - Pynchon & Bourdieu

[Mark Kohut]

Welcome.

Do it; do what you suggest. We'll read, criticize, ignore, agree and offer on 
own (often misunderstood) perspectives....

"Under the cobblestones, the beach."


 



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From: Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Tue, September 7, 2010 11:44:52 AM
Subject: Response to Kai Lorentzen - Pynchon & Bourdieu


    Hello to all. I hope this, my first contribution to the P-list, is able to 
maintain the level of intellectual rigour exhibited by other comments here as 
well as contribute to the dialogue around Pynchon and his work.
    First, I should make clear that my use of Bourdieu is guided by his 
exemplary work on Flaubert in The Rules of Art, and my own work should be seen 
as analogous to that text. I am trying to acccept the invitation that Bourdieu 
offered in Distinction (the preface to the English edition) where he encourages 
readers to "to join the game" and thereby "pursue the search for equivalents". 
Although the texts mentioned above are important for studying literature as a 
cultural product, I would be remiss not point out the importance of Bourdieu's 
lesser known books (Pascalian Meditations, Language and Symbolic Power, 
etc.) for understanding his work and ideas.
    Now that I have explained my orientation I shall respond to Kai's questions: 
"Where exactly inside the literary field of TODAY's USA did Mr. Cissell locate 
Pynchon? And how can our understanding of AtD profit from this?
    I must begin by pointing out that the Lublin conference was my first 
interaction with the community of Pynchon scholars and as such I wanted to use 
my presentation time as a way of introducing my work to the community. It would 
be nice to think that I am capable of doing in a twenty minute presentation what 
Bourdieu did in 200 pages, but I'm afraid that would be too precocious to claim. 
I am expanding the presentation for submission to publication, however, adding 
2,000 words will only be a helpful step and will by no means completely clarify 
my position. My presentation and future work on Pynchon form part of my 
dissertation project, and in that more complete academic project my ideas will 
be more fully explained.
    The above is not an attempt to dodge the bullet, but an explanation of why I 
did not completely draw out Pynchon's location in the literary field. Now, that 
said I can give a better idea of where he is located. According to Bourdieu, 
writers occupy a dominated position in the social field due to the fact that 
they lack economic capital and have only cultural capital; an acclaimed writer 
(not a best seller who reaps benefits in the form of economic capital, but one 
who has gained prestige through accolades and prizes) occupies a dominant 
position in the dominated part of the field. We can contrast Pynchon to a writer 
like John Grisham who has economic capital but little in the way of cultural 
capital. Now, to accurately map out the position of the various writers 
competing for capital and power in the literary field would require greater 
study and above all empirical evidence (for example one would have to study 
booksales, publishing history, as well as non-literary acts, such as articles or 
interviews, and where and how they occurred). I suspect, and this is only a 
hypothesis in need of evidence, that Pynchon is also not the writer's writer in 
the style of John Barth, writing for professors and students of literature and 
isolated in his domain of belle lettres. 

    Although the above may not answer Kai's first question it must suffice since 
I wish to be as concise as possible with this entry on the P-list. His second 
question is perhaps more difficult to answer. How does out understanding of AtD 
profit from this Bourdieusian approach? I'll start my response by pointing out 
that several scholars (see John Guillory in MLQ 58:4 Dec. '97) have noted how 
slowly Bourdieu's work has entered the US discourse in the Human sciences as 
compared to other theorists and scholars. This belated reception is certainly 
evident in scholarly work on Pynchon, so I can say at the very least my 
application of Bourdieu broadens the horizon of Pynchon studies and therby our 
understanding of the his work. However, Kai's question was specifically about 
AD. Instead of giving some concrete well defined answer, which would require 
much more writing and thus is not appropriae to a list serve entry, I will 
answer by going back to Boudieu's The Rules of Art. There Bourdieu writes in the 
preface that "scientific analysis of the social conditions of the production and 
reception of a work of art ... intensifies the literary experience". In The 
Rules of Art Bourdieu brings to light an understanding of Sentimental Education 
that other studies, such as Sartre's famous Family Idiot, left unilluminated. It 
is my belief that a Bourdieusian approach to Pynchon's AD will do for that novel 
what Bourdieu did for Flaubert's Sentimental Education.
    These rather long responses may not be what Kai was looking for, however, I 
hope it will give him and others a better idea of what my approach involves, 
proposes, and strives to do. 


Matthew Cissell
University of the Basque Country


      
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