[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

On 07.02.2011 12:07, Erik T. Burns wrote:

> No, I'm questioning the idea that since Gaddis likes lengthy dialogues 
> he should have been a playwright. That's like saying because Pynchon 
> likes songs he should have been a songwriter...

And Tom was one for some time ... But back to Gaddis: To me these 
lengthy dialogues - unlike those in the Magic Mountain - are no fun to 
read at all. And that 'Guess who's talking?'-trick is tiresome and 
cheap. Uwe Johnson, who did this too in his early novels, had to drop it 
in order to write his phantastic opus magnum "Jahrestage" (four 
volumes). But if the dialogues in "JR" do please you, I have no problem 
with that. And if the list goes on and on and on and on to do 'group 
reads', I most certainly cannot stop that. This is a free list. It's 
just the Social Foo-Foo around 'group reads' which is turning me off 
profoundly. Not your fault, Erik, I know. And it's true that once a 
'group read' has started, I now and then throw in a dime. Wouldn't be 
possible in this particular case, though. But hey, an US-sociologist 
predicted the death of mailing-lists already in 2007, yet the 
Pynchon-list still keeps on rocking, so maybe this kindergarten game 
called 'group read' has some "latent function" that escapes me in
this very moment ...

Doing my own thing,

Kai


> Listening to the _J R_ audiobook in particular emphasizes how 
> un-play-like the dialogues in that book are.
> Anyway, Gaddis did write a drama, based on _Agapé Agape_; performed 
> only in German, on the radio: 
> http://www.phonostar.de/radiomagazin/radioprogramm/detail.php?id=228&datum=2011-02-19 
> <http://www.phonostar.de/radiomagazin/radioprogramm/detail.php?id=228&datum=2011-02-19>
>
> On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 10:55 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen 
> <lorentzen at hotmail.de <mailto:lorentzen at hotmail.de>> wrote:
>
>
>     Because of Oscar Crease, you supadupa Gaddis freak ...
>
>
>
>     On 06.02.2011 23:18, Erik T. Burns wrote:
>
>>     >All these lengthy dialogues, perhaps Gaddis should have become a
>>     playwright himself ...
>>
>>     Er, why?
>>
>>
>>
>>     On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 11:17 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen
>>     <lorentzen at hotmail.de <mailto:lorentzen at hotmail.de>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>         I don't like his style.
>>
>>         Being interested in the sociology of law, I read about 120
>>         pages of "A Frolic of His Own".
>>
>>         All these lengthy dialogues, perhaps Gaddis should have
>>         become a playwright himself ...
>>
>>         KFL
>>
>
>

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