aw. Re: Where did ...

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

On 23.09.2011 18:07, Paul Mackin wrote:

> Not to necessarily claim precedence but I have long held that Bourdieu 
> is the guy to go to when it comes to understanding why so few read 
> Pynchon.
>
> No matter how assiduously one reads the long, erudite, 
> many-times-obscure, works, it does not seem to increase one's status 
> in society one iota.
>
> :-)


Over here this was different. During the 1980s and early 1990s reading 
Pynchon was an indicator of hipness. Among readers under the age of 50 
it did increase your status. And if you were known as a Pynchon freak, 
people joined you at parties, asking "Can you please tell me something 
about that crazy American writer?" This effect slowly faded away during 
the 1990s when authors like Vollmann and Wallace appeared on the scene. 
At the turn of the century you could rather score with "The Royal 
Family" or "Infinite Jest". Which perhaps has also to do with the fact 
that "Mason & Dixon" is not exactly "Gravity's Rainbow". And then "The 
Corrections" got published, leading to the effect that - attractive to 
many people - literary culture is little more than easy reading now. So 
malignD's dictum "You cannot criticize Joyce and claim literary 
intelligence at the same time" is simply not understood anymore.


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