Response to Kai Lorentzen - Pynchon & Bourdieu

[Robin Landseadel]

Thank you for posting this. This post is particularly welcome in light  
of our current discussions, centered as they are on the Pynchon Lit- 
Crit industry and the author's relation to American fiction of the  
romantic era. I welcome exploring Pynchon as an author who is  
decidedly NOT "writing for professors and students of literature and  
isolated in his domain of belle lettres."

On Sep 7, 2010, at 8:44 AM, Matthew Cissell wrote:

	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