No comment except Cowart is good (in earlier book)

[Paul Mackin]

On 7/5/2012 4:44 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> What might Cowart  impart to the general reader?  I guess that's Mark's question. Maybe it's this:  don't substitute reading Pynchon for reading history.  Cowart (according to the reviewer) emphasizes that TP is producing art.
>
>
> Mark's Q is to ask when some general insights like Cowart's enter our memes, so to speak, about Pynchon's work....when we see new readers, many, bloggers, group readers (elsewhere) we get memes like these: postmodern(ism), paranoia, pot, silly names and songs, complexity (of writing, of plot), entropy, science, no warm characters (or, of couse, no characterization), etc.....
>
> A good place to start, of course, but many good writers no older---I think of Roth, DeLillo (maybe cause of so many different works), maybe McCarthy---seem to
> have a wider cocktail chatter base of memes to start from. Or, am I projecting?
>
> I would like the Gnosticism meme, yes, History (and the reviewer, as Kai once did, focusses on P's focus on germany) and as I flailingly try to point to in that massive History novel AtD, Macedonia & Turkey, the Balkans, WW1...and there is Malta in V., ---so little stressed except by we here on our lonely island W.A.S.T.E. --and nature and lyricism, etc. to be part of what new readers THINK they will find in Pynchon.......
>
> In a different time, many leading reviewer-critics brought that.
   It's something I've puzzled over too.  His name seems to come up in 
literary chit chat only in connection with a narrow range of topics.  
Paranoia and Reclusivity most notably.  Also the others you mention in 
this regard.

As to why-- the usual suspects:

While everyone considers Pynchon a genius they also tend to see him as a 
bit of a clown.  Professor Cory syndrome.

Maybe people just don't like him. You don't tend to like people who 
won't meet or talk with you?  I'm talking about literary peers, not just 
fans, who love him.

I suspect a lot of literary people have never quite gotten around to 
reading much Pynchon.  Strange but True. He is kind of hard after all. 
These people are always in a rush to finish books they have a review 
deadline on.

Also there's his treatment of, say, history.  He invariably throws in 
something quite goofy that makes him inapplicable to more down to earth 
situations.

As to his exotic locales.  Central Asia in AtD for example. Well, the 
Khyber Pass has been in the news lately but no one that I've seen has 
recalled Pynchon in that connection. Again it's the weirdness of his 
treatment. Shambola.

None of the above may  be the answer, or in any way point to a solution 
.  Perhaps he's just has had his day and is awaiting a revival.

P












>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Paul Mackin<mackin.paul at verizon.net>
> To:pynchon-l at waste.org
> Cc:
> Sent: Thursday, July 5, 2012 4:19 PM
> Subject: Re: No comment except Cowart is good (in earlier book)
>
> On 7/5/2012 1:55 PM, Heikki Raudaskoski wrote:
>> I admired Cowart's allusion book back in the times when I was a
>> Pynchon scholar. (I still do.) Got the chance to meet him in fall
>> '92 when he was a Fulbright Professor at the Univ of Helsinki.
>>
>> He told me that to mark the beginning of his Fulbright commission,
>> he was invited to give an inaugural lecture at the U.S. Embassy in
>> Helsinki. The embassy was still under the Bush Sr administration.
>>
>> The lecture concerned the Domina Nocturna episode in GR. A Finnish
>> professor (Nabokov scholar) who was present told me that it was a
>> "memorable occasion".
> That's what renown professors are good at--writing focused monographs or papers.  But then it comes time to produce a book. You use what you have studied and written about,  and try to tie it all together with some grand theme. A general theory of Pynchon would be the jackpot.
>
> It would be nice to know even some significant part of what has been written by Pynchon scholars.  Some of it imparts important discoveries that are interesting in themselves. Sources are an example.  Then, there is interpretation. You find out where other p-readers are coming from.  This could be some help in reading the book, but often, in least in my case, not.
>
> What might Cowart  impart to the general reader?  I guess that's Mark's question. Maybe it's this:  don't substitute reading Pynchon for reading history.  Cowart (according to the reviewer) emphasizes that TP is producing art.
>
> P
>
>
>> Heikki
>>
>> On Thu, 5 Jul 2012, Mark Kohut wrote:
>>
>>> Reviewer is doing a thesis on TRP so has read all the criticism. Most readers of
>>> Pynchon have not.
>>>    Where are Cowart's oft ne'er-so-well-expressed insights manifested in the
>>> general reading culture of Pynchon's work?
>>>    That is what I want from the plist....insights for we Non-or-Amatuer Self-Read scholars.
>>>    Insights for life.....that new readers can sorta INHABIT.....
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: alice wellintown<alicewellintown at gmail.com>
>>> To: Mark Kohut<markekohut at yahoo.com>
>>> Cc:
>>> Sent: Thursday, July 5, 2012 8:32 AM
>>> Subject: Re: No comment except Cowart is good (in earlier book)
>>>
>>> I will read it. but most of what cowart, if the review is accurate,
>>> says,  has been said. i guess that the p-industry, and inherebt vice
>>> and agains the day are the start of it from the pynchons, author and
>>> agent, has to now move to shore up the claims to p greatness, worthy
>>> of a nobel--historical authors all, and keep the cult followers happy
>>> as they move to market to the beach novel buyers.
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 8:12 AM, Mark Kohut<markekohut at yahoo.com>  wrote:
>>>> http://www.berfrois.com/2012/07/pynchon-and-the-past-joanna-freer/