cultural capital and why we read and write books

[Mark Kohut]

Thanks for this Paul. I once got to meet and chat a bit with the article's author. Learned
he has been greatly influenced by William Gass, under whom he studied. 
 
This piece focuses some ways of seeing reading. Yes, full-bodied characters are needed for these
post-modernists to write the books they espouse. Yet, realistically, do full-bodied
characters exist anymore--in a new way? I see pynchon as tackling the question,
but I would.
 
I thought The Marriage Plot revealed irreal thinness from the opening ---so I stopped
reading. Maybe should reconsider.
 
I'm so old-fashioned, I think of Veblen re status distinctions and Trilling re the novel 
of manners---so almost impossible in america since our culture is so thin and so changing---
and novels of manners is how I read Franzen's (and others') distinctions here....
 
Call me antediluvian and educate me, y'all...
 
 
 
 

From: Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>
To: Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es>; pynchon-l at waste.org 
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 8:13 AM
Subject: cultural capital and why we read and write books

This article is kind of a mess but It seemed relevant to Matthew Cissell's interest in the theories of Bourdieu vis a vis Pynchon.

the Pyncher gets no respect in it, even as a has-been. (not even mentioned)


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/magazine/why-write-novels-at-all.html?ref=books

P
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