Pynchon & Roth thread

[Paul Mackin]

On 5/11/2011 9:38 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> P writes:
> I'm not sure sure I wouldn't quite enjoy a book full of Blicero.  He was a
> pretty marvelous creation.
>
>
> which focuses something quite perfectly, I think. The great (and yet greatly
> limited) reader, james wood--we
> call him a 'critic' said in his review of Against the Day that that book had no
> white whale and also that, whatever he was, Blicero was no Ahab and therefore
> NOT unforgettable (as a character, he meant, of course)
>
> In my letter I told him, among other things, that Blicero was
> unforgettable......
>

I suspect that Wood's reservations about the character Blicero would be 
in the nature of what if anything he stands for.  He thinks P 
over-allegorizes into meaninglessness.

Wood admires Pynchon's language pretty much without question.  (I think)

Wood seems to me  a very unstraightforward writer.  Very un-Roth-like.  
I often have to stop and ask myself what is he even saying.

P