Re: Book Review of Gravity’s Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon

[Prashant Kumar]

Bio-- The Dan Schneider Interviews: The Most Widely Read Interview Series
in Internet History -- *Roger Ebert calls Dan Schneider, 'observant, smart,
and makes every effort to be fair,' and states, 'What is remarkable about
these many words is that Schneider keeps an open mind, approaches each film
afresh, and doesn't always repeat the same judgments.* An ideal critic
tries to start over again with every review.' -- Member of the Internet
Film Critic Society (IFCS) Criterion Collection and Classic DVD Examiner
www.examiner.com/x-19688-Criterion-Collection-and-Classic-DVD-Examiner --
www.Cosmoetica.com Cosmoetica: The Best In Poetica
www.Cosmoetica.com/Cinemension.htm Cinemension: Film's Extra Dimension
Emphasis mine.
The guy's interview's aren't bad (actually). But he's as accomplished a
reader as any petulant kid I've met.  Looks like he's read Infinite Jest,
Underworld and GR back to back, just to rubbish them.
What a delight.
P.
On 25 August 2012 08:52, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:

>  On 8/24/2012 4:38 PM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>
>  He was born in 1965, so if he's going to grow out of his contrarian
> phase, he'd better get started soon.
>
>
>
> He certainly knows how to stir things up on the p-list. We haven't had
> this much excitement around here since Jules left.
>
>
> P
>
>
>
>  LK
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phillip Grayson **
> ************
>
> I don't know, I liked it a little.  I assume this is a youngish kid,
> sorting out his aesthetics.  I think I did more or less the same type of
> thing when I was 20-22, venting about Henry James and Charles Dickens and
> other amazing writers that I was trying to get around.  I was lucky enough
> that I still got the internet through a phone line then and just wrote
> these rants to myself, but they were prolly fairly similar.
>
>  Of course it's hilariously off-base, and he makes the mistake of quoting
> TRP at length and then assuming that it's evidently bad writing, when,
> well...
>
>  But I think smart kids have to go through this contrarian phase, and
> it's good for them.  The fact that he can't support his arguments and just
> falls back on rhetorical tics is something he'll prolly/hopefully get over
> before too long.
>
>  Preferring Vonnegut to Pynchon isn't a necessarily terrible thing.  I
> could buy that, respect it.  He won't write about Vonnegut, of course, but
> teenagers are better at being angry than anything else (except I was good
> at basketball), so it makes sense to lay it out like this.
>
>  It's a silly, shallow failure of a criticism, but this is something
> we've prolly all done as readers.  It's not a bad first effort at thinking
> about a serious book you didn't respond to.  I knew this brilliant kid in
> college (who's now a very good lesser known poet) who photo'd himself
> chopping Henry James books into kindling.  Obviously neither of these are
> very sophisticated criticisms, but I think it's good for young kids to get
> passionate about these things; I'm not opposed to it all that much.
>
>  phllp
> **************
>
>
>
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