Greatest living ...

[Matthew Cissell]

I'm with Mark. I remember Roddy Doyle saying that Joyce needed some editing work 
on ULysses. Typical.

Ciao
MC



----- Original Message ----
From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
To: Albert Rolls <alprolls at earthlink.net>; Pynchon-L <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Cc: Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>
Sent: Sun, March 20, 2011 10:44:50 PM
Subject: Re: Greatest Living Author?

We have barely plumbed, as a reading culture, Against the Day, at least the 
second great masterpiece of Mr, Pynchon.

to those of you who say it is "too long' and needed cut or editing.....I ask

What of his other books, except for patches, literally patches, that might not 
work and might have been cut or rewritten,
would be improved by anything like editing? Some--V...might have been hurt by 
editing...

HE puts everything he does in every chapter, every line, for a REASON...A huge 
exemplar of Schiller's 
writer of thought, a sentimentisch writer...

I say if you think some are weak, they are so for reasons akin to critics like 
Wood: too much patterned
reasoning, not enough characterization, which criticism/distinction I think is 
irrelevant..................

We are nowhere near finding out the a majority of the meaning nexuses of Against 

the Day, I say....

Or you can mostly throw out Inherent VIce, as alice and some do, or VIneland


----- Original Message ----
From: Albert Rolls <alprolls at earthlink.net>
To: Pynchon-L <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sun, March 20, 2011 2:27:11 PM
Subject: Re: Greatest Living Author?


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
>>
>>