Question for 2010 Lublin conferees (or anyone who can help)

[Joseph Tracy]

Agree, he's actually more amused and perhaps sadder  but no signs of  descent into curmudgeonhood.
On Sep 19, 2011, at 3:52 PM, Bekah wrote:

> One thing that really impresses me with Pynchon (out of many things) is that he has not seemed to get cranky with age. I've been reading some authors who apparently became quite unhappy in their later years - at least by what is presented in their works. Paul Theroux, John Steinbeck, Wallace Stegner, and I think a few more.  Pynchon still rocks.  
> 
> Bekah
> 
> 
> 
> On Sep 19, 2011, at 2:34 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>> However much Pynchon used the internet before publishing Against the Day, I will repeat my sometimes-humble, sometimes-not belief that he
>> worked on Against the Day for decades, not just since M & D was published.
>>  
>> All that density of smooth erudition from within his vision...is one major bit of circumstantial evidence...
>> Allusions that go way back to his earliest works is another.
>>  
>> It is the internet that has enabled us---the grat wiki---to tentatively annotate it so swiftly and well. Yet, we have hardly begun to read it. IMHO.
>>  
>> And, not least, perhaps most, that remark in a 60s--- letter to Cork Smith that he had a plan for three major works...
>>  
>> I might argue that he started some of Against the Day when he finished Gravity's Rainbow.....?!?
>>  
>> That it is, in most people's eyes, a loose---HUGE---baggy monster [James] is another.....bit of circumstantial evidence.
>>  
>> But I want it no different since I believe EVERYTHING he left in has resonant, nuanced meaning.
>>  
>> For about 200 years, most audiences and critics thought HAMLET was a loose, verbose play. I want it no different
>> either..................................
>> 
>> From: Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es>
>> To: Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>
>> Cc: "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Sent: Monday, September 19, 2011 1:24 PM
>> Subject: Re: Question for 2010 Lublin conferees (or anyone who can help)
>> 
>> Hello Paul,
>> 
>>     Thanks for the response. I should have made it clear that the term came up in several different discussion periods after the papers had been given, that's to say by people in the audience - unless I'm mistaken. I'll try combing through word searches in the archive as you suggest.
>>  
>>     The idea of the erudite author (or perhaps better that romantic concept of the genius) as having some hidden wisdom that the reader unveils through the correct reading process is certainly not new to the study of literature so it shouldn't be surprising to find it in studies of Pynchon's work. But as I recall the discussions were not along that line exactly (i.e. some gnosstic truth in the text that will 'free' the reader). 
>>  
>>     I can't remember if the term came up after presentations dealing with AD (though I think it likely), but I seem to recall it having to do with the overwhelming amount of references that require a little scholarly nosing around. I think most would agree that in AD Pynchon throws a lot more at the reader than he does in previous novels (whether you think he does it better or not is another discussion). It's as if the advent of the internet has allowed him to work on a bigger canvas and in more detail. Whether you come from a math & science background or from a humanities background, you will come to a lot of references that you don't fully get. I mean how many people that are familiar with quaternions will be familiar with labor history in the US, or vice versa?
>>  
>>     As for the last part...well let me respond like this. Reading is a practice, and in the case of the modern academic that reading is oriented by some theoretical viewpoint. Even a very historically oriented reading (say something in the line of New Historicism) has a theoretical aspect. But i think i know what you mean by "literary theory", makes me think of Theory (very capital T) that brings to mind the usual list of thinkers (often french - that's not meant as a slight to our french collegues) and ideas that baffle and dazzle undergrads until they've learned the discourse well enough to pass as one of the enlightened. There is often, it seems to me, an over-emphasis on close reading that stretches from the New Critics to Derrida. Close reading is a necessary part of literary studies but is not enough in my opinion. My own approach is informed in no small part by what is often referred to as intellectual history ( or the history of ideas),
>> especially the work done by Ernst Cassirrer, Roger Chartier, or Dominic LaCapra. Perhaps after the linguistic turn of the twentieth century, this century will see a turn to the socio-historical.
>>  
>>     Sorry for the long reply, i just wanted to make things clearer in regard to my query and my thoughts. Thanks again Paul for taking time to respond.
>>  
>> Ciao
>> MCC
>>  
>>  ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>
>> To: Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es>; pynchon-l at waste.org
>> Cc: 
>> Sent: Sunday, September 18, 2011 11:04 PM
>> Subject: Re: Question for 2010 Lublin conferees (or anyone who can help)
>> 
>> On 9/18/2011 2:18 PM, Matthew Cissell wrote:
>> > Hello All,
>> >          I have a question about some language that came up during the conference last year in Lublin. It's more about a phrase that came up.
>> >      I recall that on a few occasions conferees spoke of Pynchon as 'bringing something to our attention' or 'directing our attention' or using oblique references to arouse the reader's curiousity about something. At one point I heard the term "pedagogical Pynchon" used. Does anybody recall any of that? I don't believe I've come across it anywhere in the literature. That's to say that it doesn't seem to be an existing term in the discourse around studies involving Pynchon. (I leave it to others to discuss its utility or lack of.) I plan to refer to the event and the phrase in something I'm working on, but I wouldn't want to use a term without giving proper credit where needed.
>> >      Thanks
>> > ciao
>> > MCC
>> >  ps Hope you all had a fine summer.
>> > 
>> Don't know what happened at Lublin but I did query the p-list achieves.  Pedagogic gets 17 hits and didactic gets 176,  Didn't read but a couple of the actual messages.
>> 
>> Through the years here there have been many discussions surrounding the idea of 'what is Pynchon telling us?'  While most eschew this type of thinking in theory, a lot of times readers just can't seem to help it.  The thirst for wisdom is just too powerful.
>> 
>> I don't know where I read it but someone was saying that recent Pynchon studies were emphasizing the "historical" as opposed to literary theory.  Maybe that was what was going on at Lublin.
>> 
>> Dunno the answer.
>> 
>> P
>> 
>> 
>> 

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