Fw: No novels from Roth anymore

[Matthew Cissell]

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es>
To: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
Cc: 
Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2012 9:23 PM
Subject: Re: No novels from Roth anymore

Dear Alice,

Thanks for the response but it doesn't so much address my query as take issue with my approach. However, let me address some of your points.
"Is the reading without value?" No reading is without value. And questions of right and wrong would be better left to math answers. By the way I cited the issue of the squares as an example of how readings come and go.

"Why put so much weight on an a fact?...Why not put equal weight on the senstivity the
impressionist reader has to verbal naunce" Facts are important for studying literature although they are not for the reader of literature (someone who wants to read Joyce's Ulysses doesn't need to know the publishing and editing history). Of course the reader's reading experience is important if you want to understand that particular reading, but not everyone will share the same sensitivity to verbal nuance ,etc.

"Is not knowledge of film, of psychology philosophy, math, science...at least as important as knowledge of printing conventions when reading GR?" Yes and no. That is to say that one's background is fundamental to the reading experience. One may have a wonderful reading of some book without knowing about printing conventions or the human sciences. I know people that read and loved Nausea but had never read Sartre. I have even met people that have enjoyably read GR but had not availed themselves of secondary literature, the P-list, or P-notes. Remarkable, isn't it?

"Itz a shame to turn an author's work into a spectator sport where critics argue inside the industry and readers sit in the nosebleeders like so many Oedipas wandering round in Yo-Yo-land, looking into black boxes and holding the towel for the padantic Driblets."  When you say the author, is this generic or does it refer to TP? And has the author's work been turned into a spectator sport? IF so by whom. Was it me? Us? Ladbrokes? The award/ prize process and it's ceremonies? And who are the "pedantic Driblets"? Sounds like a good name for a band.
It sounds like you are lamenting the cloistered critics appropriation of literature that leaves non-professional readers in a befuddled subservitude. Man is that ironic. Alice, rhetoric like yours is the first door guard blocking the halls of literature to the uninitiated.

ciao
MC otis
________________________________
From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2012 5:18 PM
Subject: Re: No novels from Roth anymore

So what have we got after an impressionist reader, a reader who puts
emphasis on the reader and the reading of a text, is disabused of his
reading of the film-like squares on the page by the formalist, after
the formalist and impressionist agree that the squares on the page are
a printing convention? Is the reading without value? Is it wrong? A
misreading? A strong misreading? Why put so much weight on an a fact?
So the formailst critic points to the fact that the squares are a
convention and therefore not to be read as any part of the use of film
by the author. Why not put equal weight on the senstivity the
impressionist reader has to verbal naunce, to ambiguity, to the use of
graphics in modern--to postmodern texts, to the intellectual and
emotional self-awareness that admits that the fact, the convention
explains the use of the squares? Why not give weight to other elements
of the reading? Here we often read, from MB, to give a recent example,
a reading that admits to limited critical knowledge but is obviously
shaped by a deeply human personality. Is not a deeply humane
personality more important to reading a work of fiction than knowledge
of printing conventions? Is not knowledge of film, of psychology,
philosophy, math, science...at least as important as knowledge of
printing conventions when reading GR? So what if the facts argue
against the reading; a charitable reading, a common enough practice in
other disciplines, is all that is required to enrich one's own
reading.

Itz a shame to turn an author's work into a spectator sport where
critics argue inside the industry and readers sit in the nosebleeders
like so many Oedipas wandering round in Yo-Yo-land, looking into black
boxes and holding the towel for the padantic Driblets.