Greatest Living Author?

[Albert Rolls]

M&D is fabulous and in my mind stands there with GR. Vineland and IV aren't as serious as the other books, but they are still very good novels, more so the former, in comparison to other novels that find their way into the bookstores. John Dugdale, of Allusive Parables of Power fame, regularly writes reviews for English papers, and he is in the habit of reviewing P's post-GR work negatively, but he is also in the habit of writing quite positive reviews of, for example, Stephen King, whose novels, regardless of how much King has improved as a writer since the 70s, are never as well-written as either Vineland or IV at the sentence level, something even King himself would, or should, admit, since until the last decade he insisted that story was all that really mattered: well-written sentences were always secondary, if that. I didn't come to P until 1990, reading CL49 and V before Vineland, but I get the feeling that those who came to P before Vineland have been hardwired to be disappointed. A&D is long, and perhaps editing would have helped this now harried reader, to devote the time it deserves but that's my problem, not Ps, and the sentences are as extraordinary as one is likely to find in a novel of the last decade.

>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>
>>Sent: Mar 20, 2011 10:47 AM
>>To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>Subject: Greatest Living Author?
>>
>>
>>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
>>
>>