[Bulk] Re: [Bulk] Re: Burroughs?

Wed Mar 28 22:44:57 CDT 2012

Part Two, Regarding Burroughs.

I did guess simplistically on a couple Burroughs Pynchon might have read, and I 
did write that I did not remember any of the commentary I read---or words from 
TRP---suggesting noticeable influence. Of course he could have been deeply influenced
in ways not yet gotten---or much visible. 

Thanks to Michael Bailey I was reminded of that anecdote which i had forgotten about 
the young friend reading Junky. Thanks Michael. And thanks to Albert Rolls,I have
now read that scholar who finds the Giant Adenoid coming out of the Talking Asshole,soto
speak,in Naked Lunch. Thanks Albert,I didn't know of any Burroughs finds like that before
in an annotative way---even is this one is perhaps more of an analogous scholarly likeness
than writerly influence---and it may be a direct influence which I still can't quite see....
(Maybe need to go back to Naked Lunch?) Anyway,like that loose-limbed scholar, Albert,
and thanks. 

From: jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> 
Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 3:56 PM
Subject: Re: [Bulk] Re: [Bulk] Re: Burroughs?

I think you know the writer's name: go and ask him, I'm sure he'll
give you an appropriate answer. He knows how to read.

"Neutral" is the point of view in Hammett's MALTESE FALCON. Try to
give the point from where the narrator sees the unfolding of events.
And be aware that DH was one of the greatest stylists of US-American
fiction. He really knew how to build sentences and paragraphs.

And he who thinks Burroughs not worth reading or not able to influence
Pynchon - what a dork!

2012/3/26 Tom Beshear <tbeshear at att.net>:
> Ah, I gotcha. That's an appropriate question to him.
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Kohut" <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> To: "Tom Beshear" <tbeshear at att.net>; "Bled Welder"
> <bledWelder at hotmail.com>; "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2012 3:49 PM
> Subject: [Bulk] Re: [Bulk] Re: Burroughs?
>
>
> To repeat if I was unclear: I would ask the writer of the appreciation what
> was so neutral about ashes that twitched and curled---or whatever...
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Tom Beshear <tbeshear at att.net>
> To: Bled Welder <bledWelder at hotmail.com>; Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>;
> pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Cc:
> Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2012 12:03 PM
> Subject: Re: [Bulk] Re: Burroughs?
>
> Right. The issue of neutrality as seen here was brought up by the WSJ writer
> of the "appreciation of Hammett." Why would Hammett's editor even ask the
> question? It's irrelevant unless Hammett himself said his writing in that
> piece was focused on neutrality. Then maybe we'd have something.
>
> As for P and Burroughs, until someone finds a quote of P expressing an
> opinion about B, that question is worth only a shrug.
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bled Welder" <bledWelder at hotmail.com>
> To: "Mark Kohut" <markekohut at yahoo.com>; "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2012 11:49 AM
> Subject: [Bulk] Re: Burroughs?
>
>
> What,s neutrality, in novel writing? Should I know this? or should i just
> be natural about it? What decides neutrality naturality, my editors and
> critics? Supposing that I did? Do literary scholars define the terms and
> then I write according to them, or perish?
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: Mark Kohut
> Sent: 25 Mar 2012 13:28:20 GMT
> To: pynchon -l
> Subject: Re: Burroughs?
>
> Speaking of Chandler, this is from a WSJ appreciation of Hammett:
> "freakish knack for making neutrality interesting. Every object in a Hammett
> novel registers with unnerving clarity, even when it doesn't appear to
> signify anything at all—as in this aria to an office desk:
> "Ragged gray flakes of cigarette-ash dotted the yellow top of the desk and
> the green blotter and the papers that were there. A buff-curtained window,
> eight or ten inches open, let in from the court a current of air faintly
> scented with ammonia. The ashes on the desk twitched and crawled in the
> current." "
>
> Remind anyone of anyone else's desk in fiction?....[And, I'd have asked this
> writer were I his editor, is it real neutrality when ashes twitch and
> crawl?]
>
> And, since I feel pretentious enough this morning to see connections all
> over, I might argue that Pynchon's famous lists, such as Slothrop's desk,
> might be a
> fictional statement about "naturalism' in fiction now [then]. That is, it
> was just the residue of facts, the naked facts, and much, much more beyond
> naturalism was needed to present
> a vision in the later 20th Century (and beyond)...
>
> There were a lot of writers and readers arguing that realism (not to mention
> naturalism, it's overdetermined relative) was passe.....Barth: Literature of
> Exhaustion......Pynchon friend Barthelme in his work. (Don't know of any
> prose by him on literature)
>
>
> From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> To: Henry M <scuffling at gmail.com>; Toby Levy <tobyglevy at gmail.com>
> Cc: "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2012 9:01 AM
> Subject: Re: Burroughs?
>
>
> Since it is primary season, I vote for Toby Levy here....not qualified to
> judge Borroughs, even badly,
> in my own estimation, since I stopped reading him, but besides the human vs.
> machine theme, I can
> see nor have never read of any possible influence.........
>
> I would bet that voracious reader TRP at least read Naked Lunch and at least
> started Soft Machine
> 'cause of the title, but........influence. He preferred Chandler (that joke
> is meant to imply he wanted
> story, always, difficult as his plots are........)
>
> I think TRP might find Borroughs satirizable--part of modernism's
> failures---
> as he does 'modern' "experimental" artists in V. and AtD.
>
> Just offhand.
>
> From: Henry M <scuffling at gmail.com>
> To: Toby Levy <tobyglevy at gmail.com>
> Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2012 7:22 AM
> Subject: Re: Burroughs?
>
>
> You read burroughs 50 years ago! Somtimes it's the listener, and not the
> song, ya know, particularly when the listener has no more to say about the
> song than that they just didn't think it was very good.
>
> AsB4,
> ٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
> Henry Mu
> http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20
>
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 6:50 AM, Toby Levy <tobyglevy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Sorry, I just don't see Burroughs in this light, and I don't see how
>>
>> an assumption can be made that a young author was a "fan" simply
>> because the older author was on the cover of Life magazine as being
>> the new voice of the Beats.
>>
>> I read Burroughs back in the 60s and I just didn't think he wrote very
>> well.
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
>> Date: Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 1:32 AM
>> Subject: Re: Burroughs?
>> To: Toby Levy <tobyglevy at gmail.com>
>> Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
>>
>>
>> On what score? Burroughs was popular among the late beats, the
>> beatniks, and the early hippies. Why, from this distance, would we
>> assume that an aspiring young writer of considerable genius would not
>> be influenced by someone perceived to be moving along the cutting edge
>> of culture in his time?
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 8:57 PM, Toby Levy <tobyglevy at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I just don't think Pynchon would be a fan of Burroughs. I disagree
>>> with your assessment of Burroughs' talents.
>>>
>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>> From: Henry M <scuffling at gmail.com>
>>> Date: Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 5:06 PM
>>> Subject: Re: Burroughs?
>>> To: Pynchon Liste <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>>
>>>
>>> I have always assume that it was assumed, i.e. without reason other
>>> than they're both excellent, cool, and experimental.
>>>
>>> AsB4,
>>> ٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
>>> Henry Mu
>>> http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 1:05 PM, Toby Levy <tobyglevy at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://www.artlyst.com/articles/william-s-burroughs-explored-through-his-visual-art
>>>>
>>>> The above posting claims that Pynchon is a fan of Burroughs. I can't
>>>> remember reading this before. Where does this assertion come from?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Toby
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "Less than any man have I excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
>> creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
>> trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
>> of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
>> than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant
>>
>
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