TRTR Which one is not like the other one?

[cfabel]

Ok, I don't know what the book is really all about. But just a thought. It
does seem to cast our society as bereft of coherent purpose in part due to
our economics, our capitalism that acknowledges only greater profits as
worthy of recognition. So much talent, energy and promise either go
unrecognized or are squandered. There is not even nobility in failure as
there is really no meaning or direction to the profit seeking. And,
uncannily, there is little dynamic in all of the seeking. There seems, in
fact, the more one reads, an ennui, a pointless repetition of fragments as
though their invocation alone might conjure-up . (Godot?). Perhaps the
accretions of our Western culture (social structure, capitalism) prevent us
from piercing the veils all around us and getting to the vital? 

 

 

C. F. Abel

Chair

Department of Government

Stephen F. Austin State University

Nacogdoches, Texas 75962

(936) 468-3903

 

 

 

From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of Mark Kohut
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2011 8:10 AM
To: Richard Ryan
Cc: pynchon -l
Subject: Re: TRTR Which one is not like the other one?

 

Richard writes very interestingly: 
I don't think that TR is either a social or a political novel.  Think it's a
"metaphysical romance" with a psychotherapeutic overlay.  It's a book about
the ways in which strong personalities make weak choices.  Put another way,
it's a meditation on the presumption that  "Human kind cannot bear very much
reality."

 

will only add that romances that work and live do illumine reality, some of
which is social....Moby Dick, to go somewhere else,

has allegorical, American society resonances up the wazoo...........

 

That thematic line is from Eliot, as you surely know...a Gaddis influencer
up the wazoo...........

 

On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 10:06 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

1955  The Recognitions...massive, character-filled novel savaging the
phoniness of Americans in their money-conscious society, because of
such money/success is all ethos.......

1957 Atlas Shrugged   ...Massive, cardboard character-filled novel savaging
the phoniness of American society because it would not admit that making
money is everything................




-- 
Richard Ryan
New York and the World
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