Pynchon and Roth

[Paul Mackin]

On 5/11/2011 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.
>

Very much agree.

The word utilitarian might tend to convey what book reviewers mean when 
they speak of workmanlike prose, which means not  inspired writing but 
getting the point across.

P
>
>
> -----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
>>>
>>
>

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