The WreckIgnitions Read. Snarky question

[Ian Livingston]

The Wiki post of sarcasm is consistent with the definition my Eng 102
prof gave lo, those eons ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm
That also fits with what I have read of Gaddis (Agape Agape). He seems
to intend to rip flesh with his humor. It seems aimed at causing a
smart. We grin in self-recognition, and maybe feel a little guilty, or
even a bit ashamed at our passivity, despair.

And Pynchon seems to me often to go over into slapstick, which is
certainly hyperbolic--to the point that the smart of the bite is lost
somewhat in the guffaws it arouses. I think of Buster Keaton, the 3
Stooges, and Charlie Chaplin at times in Pynchon's lampoons. They
point to our frailties, extravagances, and absurd denial in such a way
that we can laugh without recognizing that we are laughing at
ourselves. At other times, though, he sends a dart right into the
heart of the matter with such accuracy that I am powerless against the
impulse to act upon my own convictions. Against the Day seems richest
in those last.

On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 11:01 AM, Richard Ryan <himself at richardryan.com> wrote:
> I think of sarcasm as the hyperbolic expression of an emotional or
> mental state to achieve ironic or deflationary effect. And since
> Gaddis's tone is not exaggerated - rather it's caustic and droll - I'm
> not sure I'd agree with the ascription of sarcasm to this work.
>
> The big news here is that Gaddis has style and tone of humor which is
> distinctive and dramatic enough that I find he clearly earns his own
> adjective - Gaddisian - in the same way that Pynchon has by the power
> of his style and voice created his own "brand."
>
> On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 12:56 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> And, since I probably was not clear, that superiority that generates sarcasm
>> is the narrator----Can't yet call him Gaddis hisself but a close relative, so to
>> speak,
>> I'd think......
>>
>> I am still surprised by the seemingly omniscient narrator....expecting
>> much more the limited omniscience of many novelists...like TRP, others of HIS
>> time and since....from The Good Soldier
>> even Hank James was not always so omniscient....
>>
>> In a way, The Recognitions is narrated like an old-fashioned 19th Century novel
>> yet is not even close to the most famous beyond that....................
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----
>> From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>> To: Richard Ryan <himself at richardryan.com>
>> Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Sent: Sat, April 9, 2011 10:55:28 AM
>> Subject: Re: The WreckIgnitions Read. Snarky question
>>
>> A--and, much more sarcasm in Gaddis?....good, bad, neither (just different)?
>>
>>
>> Sarcasm in general---true here?---comes from what some might call more arrogance
>> than playfulness........narrator writes from a higher plane of superiority than
>> V. ever
>> inhabits, yes?.....and even GR? Gaddis is more Swiftian in his savageness than
>> Pynchon----but Pynchon imagines over-the-top more like Swift. (What he sez
>> surrealism
>> might have opened him to...conceits like a game of extreme metaphor)
>>
>> Which, again---choose C above---just says something about the overwhelmingness
>> on Gaddis vision herein, yes? Dark as a lie.....He KNOWS faking it is
>> everywhere.......
>> For him the famous line might be: "The tower is nowhere"....?
>>
>> Pynchon on the page, although also a dramatically dark vision of History and
>> America in V......and GR.......
>>
>> laughs more?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----
>> From: Richard Ryan <himself at richardryan.com>
>> To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>> Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>; pov at ix.netcom.com
>> Sent: Sat, April 9, 2011 10:35:35 AM
>> Subject: Re: The WreckIgnitions Read. Snarky question
>>
>> Concur.  Gaddis: dry, wry.  Pynchon: boisterous, sometime (to his
>> cost) buffoonish.
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 9:44 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> Gaddis, Pynchon, both 'comic' writers--as Erik Burns has helped me--us?--focus
>>> on.
>>>
>>>
>>> But Gaddis's wit, so laconic via the narrator, as They say of English wit is
>>> much
>>> more what we have come to label snarky than Pynchon's
>>>
>>> Which is, often simply juvenile and otherwise just Falstaff-exuberant on the
>>> page.
>>>
>>>
>>> Yes? Discuss among ourselves.....
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Richard Ryan
>> New York and the World
>> ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
>> Come see VTM's new production!
>> www.kingstheplay.com
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Richard Ryan
> New York and the World
> ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
> Come see VTM's new production!
> www.kingstheplay.com
>



-- 
"Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant