The Recognitions & TRP ---for Kai

[Mark Kohut]

Ms. Chambers later in her book Thomas Pynchon remarks that V. & GR
and The Recognitions and JR are 'remarkably similar in approach and sensibility"
then quoting friend Steven Moore that Gaddis is the classical musician, Pynchon
the jazz artist............

Then she reminds that there is an oblique reference to Gaddis' Carpenter's 
Gothic
in Vineland..."legendary carpenters had appeared...genuises with wood who could 
build you
anything from a bowling alley to a Carpenter Gothic outhouse."  



----- Original Message ----
From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sun, July 3, 2011 9:50:02 PM
Subject: The Recognitions & TRP ---for Kai

Yesterday I received library withdrawals of two critical works
on Thomas Pynchon from a librarian friend. In this library system,
neither had been checked out in 5 years...

Browsing ,I read in no-slouch-he Richard Poirer's essay from 1976
[in Blloom's Chelsea House collection on TRP] the remark, with no 
substantiation, that TRP was influenced by Gaddis.........

in her 1989 book, Judith Chambers does a pynchon-like list of his known 
influences, quoting from that Slow Learner intro and more and again 
sez Gaddis influenced him.  It is later in the list and we know it isn't
a direct quote. She could be repeating the judgments of Tony tanner
and/or Richard Poirier, as Richard could have learned and repeated 
from Tanner back then. [Poirer's essay sans GR addition originallky appeared
somwhere else before GR was published]

So. 'You're gonna want cause and effect".......................