Pynchon and Roth

[alice wellintown]

Two good descriptions of PR.  His sentneces are clean and tight. He
knows how to write. His stories don't lock me in. Mostly Jewish Jersey
Fair.  Pynchon's a word master. Roth is one of the best best sellers
on the market. We might Compare Apples and Orange Acid.

Roth makes good use of a sentence. Utilitarian is the wrong word for
his language skill. He drives. Pynchon flies.

On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 4:54 PM,  <malignd at aol.com> wrote:
> Utilitarian?  It may not be self-consciously poetic but it's masterful.  It
> has tremendous rhythm and drive and propulsive energy.  It never sags, not
> for a sentence.  He locks me in quicker than any writer I can name.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>
> To: Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>; pynchon-l
> <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Wed, May 11, 2011 5:08 am
> Subject: Re: Pynchon and Roth
>
>
>
> Yes, with Roth the language is simple and straightforward.  You never have
> to consciously pause and ask yourself why did he chose that particular word
> or image.   The  language is utilitarian, a means to an end. It's what the
> words relate that is important. With Pynchon language is all.  The genius is
> not is what he says, which often can't quite be parsed,  but how he says it.
>
> P
>
>
> On 5/11/2011 6:45 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
>
> On 08.05.2011 16:49, Paul Mackin wrote:
>
> I like Philip Roth.  He's funny, which is pleasurable, and there is constant
> struggle with social forces, his family, his women, etc.
>
> The good thing about Philip Roth for the non-native speaker/reader is, that
> the books are written in an easy way. Sure, there is 'frames in frames' and
> other pomo sophistication. But on the level of vocabulary and
> sentence-construction you always catch it right away. That's different with
> Pynchon's books, which also have a wider spectrum of leitmotifs. Philip Roth
> is always primarily writing about Philip Roth. Actually I haven't read him
> lately, but I remember "The Counterlife" and "Operation Shylock" very well.
> Both part of my personal canon. Perhaps this is because these books leave
> the relatively small social life-world of the upper intellectual middle
> class of New Jersey. There's more of the not so "funny" world in it, but
> it's still that "pleasurable" straightforward style. And Roth is writing
> excellent dialogue. Better than Pynchon, no doubt. But Pynchon, who has no
> talent for clarity, is imo the far more poetic prose-writer. Pynchon can
> evoke goose-flesh and hyperventilation. He's channeling the Orphic stream
> ...
>
> KFL
>
> PS: Of course this doesn't mean that Tom can't be funny -- "'And considered
> subjectively,' added Dr. V. Ganesh Rao of the Calcutta University, 'as an
> act of becoming longer or shorter, while at the same time turning, among
> axis whose unit vector is not familiar and comforting 'one' but the
> altogether disquieting square root minus one. If you were a vector,
> mademoiselle, you would begin in the 'real' world, change your length, enter
> an 'imaginary' reference system, rotate up to three different ways, and
> return to 'reality' a new person. Or vector.'/'Fascinating. But ... human
> beings aren't vectors. Are they?'/'Arguable, young lady. As a matter of
> fact, in India, the Quaternions are now the basis of a modern school of
> Yoga, a discipline which has always relied on such operations as stretching
> and turning. Here in the traditional 'Triangle Asana', for example' --- he
> stood and demonstrated --- 'the geometry is fairly straightforward. But soon
> one moves on to more advanced forms, into the complex spaces of the
> Quaternions ...' He shifted a few dishes, climbed on the table, announced
> 'The Quadrantal Versor Asana,' and commenced a routine which quickly became
> more contortionistic and now and then you'd say contrary-to-fact, drawing
> the attention of other diners and eventually the maître d', who came running
> over waving a vehement finger and was two steps away from the table when Dr.
> Rao abruptly vanished" (Against the Day, p. 539). Oh Logik des
> Verschwindens!
>
>
>
> I'm not sure sure I wouldn't quite enjoy a books full of Blicero.  He was a
> pretty marvelous creation.
>
> P
>
>
>
>