GR criticism

[Mark Kohut]

Short answer for the long work of rereading: 

As T.S. Eliot wrote 1) One must understand the words, scenes, ideas on the page first. Ware's wiki, our parsing of Jing's focussing--which would be wonderful to go onto the wiki; Fowler, Weisenburger (some plisters are thanked in latest editions of W.) enable this.

Reading, rereading Shakespeare, with deep annotations, is quietly mind-blowing and marvelous.  What Eliot meant (I guess) and would be ideal for reading GR (all of TRP) which those @400 years from now--as far as we are from Shakescene--- might do it---if the Trespassers are proved wrong in real life. Sigh, I'll miss it. 

Early P.S. I add: there are an infinite number of ways, more or less, to even get the words wrong, yet more than one way usually to get them 'right"....(as we know well)

Then T(ough) S(hit) Eliot, after lots of words which helped make his critical reputation as a theoretical reader---stuff about 'feeling the structure' and generalizing properly about all one's reading "impressions" (and trying not to miss too many impressions) summed it up like this:

Be as intelligent as you can. 



----- Original Message -----
From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Cc: 
Sent: Sunday, December 4, 2011 6:26 PM
Subject: Re: GR criticism

LONG ANSWER
I suspect Pynchon might point in a different direction for meaningful and lasting critical analysis of his work.  On the cover of ATD are 3 printings of the title,  author and the words "a novel"; they are  layered from front to back. The front type is black, the next medium grey and the next a lighter grey.  They are spreading out and rising as they recede in space.  To my mind as a visual artist it is as though the light were coming in a focused beam from in front of the foremost letters. That would be the approximate  position of the reader, since you usually tilt a book so the top is slightly further away than the bottom.  

I would suggest that Pynchon has openly nudged people away from the critics and towards the work itself and their own creative processes and knowledge base in enjoying and understanding that or any literary work. 

I don't want to put words in P's mouth but my thinking is that like the cover of ATD  it is the reader who brings the crucial and essential light that will illuminate Pynchon's projection of a 3 layered world. I find the ring of truth in most of what I have read by critics; Pynchon's work easily  bears the intense critical investigation it has triggered  and rewards  that pursuit. Personally I have the hardest time though,  with something like Weisenburger because, while it points to some fascinating dimensions of the work, it also seems more like a priestly interpretation than  critical observations and demands the presumption of a rather narrow authorial process and intent. In doing so it also obscures something essential and lively about the playful heretic himself. I am not qualified or interested in an elaborate defense of this feeling about Weisenburger's take. I started reading him, became uncomfortable, read random passages for awhile then
 laid it down because GR itself was still fresh, pungent and rich in it's effect on my mind ,  and Weisenburger's  book was not enhancing the experience but seeking to reshape it into something of less interest to me. 
On Dec 4, 2011, at 1:08 AM, Robert Mahnke wrote:

> What's the best critical writing on Gravity's Rainbow?
SHORT ANSWER
Your own
>