AtD-related? "the abstraction of non-imperial art"

[Mark Kohut]

You may be right , of course. Much depends on our definitions (as well
as our judgments).

I think whatever makes GR better than those two, and the scope of the historical condemnation
would be my first response, speaks to the Swiftian---with Gulliver as comparison. A Modest Proposal
is a more modest work, no?

and, I would ask what, if GR's satire is not virtually total, makes it better that is not satiric in 
your judgment? 



----- Original Message -----
From: jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2012 1:16 AM
Subject: Re: AtD-related? "the abstraction of non-imperial art"

I think Gravity's Rainbow is a better novel than Slaughterhouse 5 or
Catch 22 but I think the latter ones are both more savage anti-war,
and more satirical as well.

2012/4/20 Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>:
> So, I'll double down or up, whatever...'
>
> Yes, I think GR is one of the most savage anti-war works ever written
>
> And, I think AtD may be satirizing Swiftianly the whole world since .................
> at least the Industrial Revolution...............................
>
> Savage? When one is not laughing but thinking.
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> To: jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
> Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 9:22 PM
> Subject: Re: AtD-related? "the abstraction of non-imperial art"
>
> I think Pynchon in many places can be compared to the Swift of
> Gulliver's Travels....Not least AtD as I have suggested....
> Candlebrow U and the Lilliputians....
>
> And if P has never written something like A Modest Proposal,
> I do think many scenes/sections of Gravity's Rainbow are
> in the same vein....many of the subversive and savage sexual
> scenes for example, which led those morons at Candlebrow--Columbia
> University to call it obscene....---"My husband is an idiot but he is a very well-educated idiot"
> says someone in Gulliver, if i remember aright and
> P plays with idiot a lot in TRP---just an aside....
>
> But If I overrate TRP, so be it. Haven't reread A Modest Proposal in
> a long time mostly because it seems seared into my head.......
> I have tried to imagine its effect on many but I have never looked
> anything up about it............................
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
> To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 5:31 PM
> Subject: Re: AtD-related? "the abstraction of non-imperial art"
>
> Would you really say, Mark, that Pynchon writes "savage Swiftian
> satire" like the Modest Proposal? A text that I would call subversive
> and savage all right.
>
> 2012/4/19 Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>:
>> "The abstraction of non-imperial art is not concerned with any particular
>> public or audience."
>>
>> From an online tweet and NO link.....but we plisters don't need no stinkin'
>> link to a real
>> essay to have a good discussion, do we?
>>
>> I would, many of you have in various ways, see Pynchon's art as
>> anti-imperialistic, yes?
>>
>> If his irrealness, surrealism, savage Swiftian satire, or whatever we
>> want to call his style is labelled
>> 'abstract' for purposes of this discussion---basically, not realistic and
>> full of ideas---
>>
>> any thoughts on the quote?