Greatest Living Author? [CORRECTION]

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

Should, of course, be "my regular first-to-last-page RE-read of Against 
the Day".

Sorry for being so unfocused today. Was partying last night!

Kai

On 20.03.2011 15:47, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:

>
> Laura Kelber uttered on TRP:
>
> > Greatest Living Author
>
>
> Still think that Gravity's Rainbow belongs - together with 
> Slaughterhouse 5, Ubik, Blood Meridian, The Runaway Soul and Infinite 
> Jest - to the best American novels in the 20th century's second half, 
> but everything since Vineland (nice personal epilogue, though) reads, 
> though still full of interesting ideas, not so well in terms of 
> serious literature. Not that I could have written it, mind you! It's 
> just that I recently re-read IV in translation and then re-re-read it 
> in original, thinking: My goodness! What a flat book. The Bill Millard 
> essay (thanks again!) is great, true, but it is - let's face it! - 
> more about architecture, urban space and land development in general, 
> picking up IV pieces for reasons of illustration. Millard is not 
> interested in Pynchon's style and he openly admits to find the plot 
> irrelevant. Inherent Vice doesn't reveal much on second and third 
> read; actually it begs for the Hollywood movie adaption. Also was able 
> to finish - Uff! - my regular first-to-last-page read of Against the 
> Day. Hhmm ... The Ostende parts (still think that they stem from an 
> early draft written by the time of GR) are kinda good, and Cyprian is 
> an interesting character. But the book is far far too long, and I 
> certainly won't repeat my M&D mistake to read it a third time. 
> Regarding those Iceland parts I may say that - although I'd be the 
> first person to welcome a straight-into-the-face HPL parody of, say, 
> 12 or 15 pages - no author, dead or alive, should try to compete with 
> Lovecrafts's "At the Mountains of Madness". It's - perhaps together 
> with "The Colour Out of Space" - his most brilliant text, and 
> Pynchon's parody is rather lame. However, CoL 49 is a nice novella 
> announcing the Rainbow, and very few authors in their mid twenties 
> managed to bring out a debut novel like V. The King is dead, long live 
> the King!
>
> KFL
>
>
>
>