TRTR - Chapter VI au revoir

[alice wellintown]

The kind of novel or work is certainly one factor. A satire needs
idiots and fools and even bad guys and jackasses too.  Although a
famous Pynchon critic has argued for a kind of postmodern satire, one
that does not have targets or does not hold up to ridicule the follies
and foibles of us humans while calling for some correction, even this
formula does not relegate characters to ideas bounced off one another
like so many pool balls. Of course, I take Jed's idea quite seriously
cause it do make a mean warning to those who would, be they readers or
writers, judge a thing by they own colors and prejudice a work of art.
We can, though we've only just got into this work, begin to sense some
of its values. We can, without much trouble, apply some of these to
the characters. The work values benevolence and generoisty of spirit
over self-seeking pretentiousness. Otto is the latter or lesser of
these. He is a jackass. I don't like him. He is a marvelous invention.
I live him.

PS Alice wrote the last sentnece.

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 8:30 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> No one can say it like this but Alice and I like this
> too except to say Otto is a real creation because he
> is an admixture of some good and bad, mostly not so good
> since this work is a "vicious but hilarious' satire of human
> bad shit.....
>
> Look at Otto in the chapter we have just read when after angling
> to get Esme into bed, love nor much of a relationship even part of it,
> he does get emotionally hit with her face..............
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Sun, June 5, 2011 7:03:39 PM
> Subject: Re: TRTR - Chapter VI au revoir
>
> James Wood says that there is nothing harder than the creation of
> fictional characters. Of course, diamonds are harder and dirt is
> tougher and a chocolate Jesus is sweeter, but Wood is talking about
> fiction and how it works, so...and itz a itzy bitzy book...and
> well...we get his point. Sorry you didn't get mines, what it that I
> likes Otto well enough sure as fiction but he sure do stink up the
> joint. What WG does well, and the list is quite long, is to animate
> his portraits. And he do the policeman's voice so sick. Wood talks
> about Conrad writing longer works to try to convince the reader of his
> characters. He kept adding more and more, like a painter with a brush.
> Ever painted? Well, after a while more makes a mess of less and you
> got to think about a new canvas. An unfinished man, as Yeats calls his
> portrait of the young artist, is not like a character of fiction. What
> finishes a character can be nothing more than an ashplant or a dream
> about something beautiful. Otto is finished and trim. His sling and
> his jottings in shorthanded theatrics, his fictions, he reminds me of
> the sad eyed lady of Dylan's Lowlands but on a whole nuther beveled
> bleed.
> He ain't mo friend of mine.
> But I like to see him kick just the same.
>
>