V-2nd - Kudos to Kohut and Bailey

[Mark Kohut]

I don't deserve no nothing. But thanks.

I want to hope I can read better now than with previous reads so I felt/think I 
saw more richness, yet I felt more weaknesses. I see why Tony Tanner called 
the book powerful but hollow---too strong imho---because he, TT, felt TRP so 
weighted the failure of Western Civ that Paola can not be believed as positive 
counterweight for the future. She and Hod at the end? bad jokes...  
So it goes.

But one reason I wanted to read it again is to see all the incredible richness 
of Against the Day peeking out of V. as well. I did see some
of that. Pynchon is one coherent visioneer, inho, so much mentally formed even 
here---and how he developed such an Historic vision---quantitatively
20, 000 leagues over his stories--even his best stories. (thanking you, alice, 
wh'ev'r you am)

Every work of Pynchon's is different---yes, Jorge Louis Borges, I'm alluding to 
you---when reread after Against the Day, i say.

Purely speculatively, I think since my last reading that between his last 
college stories and reading, is when TRP might have read The Recognitions which 
taught him how to go so deep. 

Thanks all. I do love talking here...
 



----- Original Message ----
From: "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Fri, March 18, 2011 11:27:33 AM
Subject: V-2nd - Kudos to Kohut and Bailey

As originally planned, the V-2 Group read ends this Sunday.

I apologize profusely for not responding to (but reading!)all of the great posts 
by Kohut and Bailey, who (with occasional help from random P-listers) kept the 
flame alive with lots of pithy comments about that very dense Conclusion.  I 
suspect a lot of people read them, but like me, wimped out on responding.

So my question to Kohut and Bailey -- those two valiant torch-bearers! -- and 
anyone else who'd like to answer:

Has this reading changed your view of the book for better or worse, or left it 
intact?  What was/is your view of the book anyway?

I'd say this reading somewhat lessened my view of the book, in that the Profane 
sections (with the exception of the Catskills and alligator hunt sequences) 
seriously got on my nerves in a way that they hadn't in my two earlier 
readings.  Just getting too old for them, I guess.

On the other hand, Mondaugen's Story stands is as brilliant as ever, and the 
Esthers Nose Job and V. in Love chapters and The Conclusion could have been 
ripped from GR.  Could Pynchon have written GR without this first go-round?  
Unlikely.  It's interesting to note that there are no analogs for those 
Profane/Whole Sick Crew/NY hipster scenes in GR.  Pynchon himself clearly 
rejected that literary dead-end.  It's gone for good.  That alone makes V. a 
worthwhile endeavor for the young Pynchon.

If V. had been the only book he'd written, would it stand?  I think it would.  
Even with the weak Profane sections, there's so much that's fascinating (love 
that Kilroy/Band Pass Filter riff!, the juxtapositions are so quirky, some of 
the paragraphs so rich and mind-bending, that I don't think the book would have 
fizzled into obscurity over the years.

Good book, Great Group Read, Greatest Living Author.

Laura


-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>Sent: Mar 17, 2011 9:52 PM
>To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Dear Plisters,
>
>Are we done? What's next? 
>
>
>
>