No novels from Roth anymore

Mon Nov 12 04:35:30 CST 2012

I actually wrote that last in parts and mentally switched from TRP early to ROTH about the prefaces and autobio. Careless.

I expect neither from TRP

Sent from my iPad

On Nov 12, 2012, at 5:30 AM, Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es> wrote:

> Dear Mark et al,
> 
> It is clear that many think little of IV. Fine. It has even been implied (I think I read this here) that TP wrote it so he could flop it over into a movie and thus reach out to a wider audience, the idea of which is apparently very reprehensible to some (I wonder why).
> 
> But before people start to shout, lets consider something. In "Merchants of Culture" John Thompson clearly demonstrates the Oprah effect and the movie bounce. I won't go into the new salon gurus of taste but I will put up some numbers. Elie Wiesel's Night was selling low volume (understandably) prior to Oprahs mention and then it skyrocketed to about 140,000 before dwindling back down. THis is not a negligible fact. (Of course this can lead to the difficult position that Franzen found himself in, and handled badly; the economic capital one gains in terms of book sales is desirable but the low cultural capital that Oprah offers is not the kind of high-brow kudos many authors desire.)
> Ian McEwan's Atonement presents a similar case. Available in paperback since 2003, "by early 2007 the book had settled into the pattern of a stable but modest backlist title, reguarly selling between 1,000 and 2,000 copies a week... Sales began to climb in November, ahead of the movie's US release on 7 December By Christmas the book was selling over 77.000 a week, including 50,000 in the new trade edition and over 13,000 in the mass-market edition." (quoted from Thompson's book). What author wouldn't like that?
> 
> Before people scream "Sell-out!" lets consider the game as it is played now. Publishing is a much tougher business now than 20 or 40 years ago. One should not expect the author of V. to play the same as the author of AtD. Pynchon's book (IV) and his agreement to have it made into a movie seems very astute to me. Roth has had several books made into movies and that doesn't stop the PR Society from claiming he deserves the nobel.
> 
> I started with Mann with Death in Venice and read on; I started Joyce with Dubliners and read on. I think Mark's point is quite valid. Keep an eye on those Amazon sales numbers, I bet we see some change once the movie comes out. Any takers?
> 
> ciao
> mc otis
> 
> ps Pynchon knows more about books and the industry than many of us. Do you really think him so doddering and off his head?
> 
> pps. Mark, an autobiography would be too much to hope for. Access to his drafts and library would be good enough for me, although if he helped someone do a bio that would be sweeet.
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> To: Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es>
> Cc: "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Monday, November 12, 2012 12:14 AM
> Subject: Re: No novels from Roth anymore
> 
> The only adult woman who read books in my hood when I was young raved, often w huge sentimentality (when drinking, I came to see) about Mann' s The Holy Sinner, minor and right before THe Black Swan, i believe. Surely I learned
> who Mann was from her.
> 
> Scour the interwebs, check with booksellers and see how many are discovering Pynchon thru his fine, fun minor novel INHERENT VICE. Wait until the movie creates many new readers. Some Readers reading others? Surely. 
> 
> Pericles was one of the most popular of Shakespeare's plays during his lifetime. 
> 
> And P.S. the one and only Shakescene retired too, much younger. 
> 
> I hope he can not resist writing (for after) something like prefaces to all his works as James did. 
> And an autobiography. 
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
> On Nov 11, 2012, at 9:10 AM, Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es> wrote:
> 
>> Dear all,
>> 
>>   Let me clarify my response to Kai's post. When I asked "why" it was rather clear that Kai's aestetic evaluation was not positive, so telling me that "it sucks" is hardly helpful, Rich. I'm not interested in arguing aesthetics.
>> 
>> When Kai wrote "Wouldn't it be a pity if Inherent Vice turned out to be his last book?", perhaps instead of "why" I should have asked 'a pity for whom'. Would it be a pity for TP? Why? Because it would not be fitting for the master builder to offer us a shack instead of the temple we long for? Does it lessen his former works or his own stature and worth? Is it a pity that Thomas Mann gave us The Black Swan shortly before his death instead of some great novel like The Magic Mountain?
>> Or is it a pity for US in which case I must also ask why. Do we have so much invested in TP's status that any percieved shortcoming on TP's part affects us as well?
>> 
>> It reminds of a professor who argued for Yeats as THE great poet of the 20th c. because his production was fantastic right to the last line, according to that professor. This seems to be what makes the mark of the Master Writer, consistently great writing to the end without turning soft or commercial or whatever. But doesn't this discourse have it's own history? 
>> 
>> The origin of my inquiry lies in the fact that I'm interested in looking at what Pynchon means to us, how we consume his texts and produce readings that then compete with other people's readings in order to gain some currency. Here on the list we see examples of people providing contending readings and how they gain traction. Consider the story of the little squares in GR that someone thought were film reel squares thus implying a cinemagraphic reading of the novel; the idea gained some ground but was eventually eroded by the truth of the editing history - a reading advances and then recedes.
>> 
>> In the end I don't care if Kai dislikes IV or if he thinks Arno Schmidt better or worse than writers from Gruppe 47; his statement simply makes me wonder about the value of TP's work in our lives.
>> 
>> Respectfully,
>> MC otis
>> 
>> 
>> ________________________________
>> From: jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
>> To: Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de> 
>> Cc: "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
>> Sent: Friday, November 9, 2012 6:06 PM
>> Subject: Re: No novels from Roth anymore
>> 
>> It may suck for you. It drips for me.
>> 
>> 
>> 2012/11/9 Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>:
>>> 
>>> As the saying goes: Die Retourkutsche fährt nur von zwölf bis mittags.
>>> 
>>> http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=1208&msg=167246&sort=date
>>> 
>>> And yes, IV sucks.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 09.11.2012 16:39, jochen stremmel wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Why does that (of all places: here) endlessly repeated reproach remind
>>>> me of Lichtenberg's aphorism about the book and the head that bang
>>>> together?
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 2012/11/9 rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>:
>>>>> 
>>>>> cause it sucked?
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 9:23 AM, Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Why?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> ________________________________
>>>>>> From: Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>
>>>>>> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>>>>> Sent: Friday, November 9, 2012 1:19 PM
>>>>>> Subject: No novels from Roth anymore
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> http://www.lesinrocks.com/2012/10/07/livres/philip-roth-nemesis-sera-mon-dernier-livre-11310126/
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Philip Roth, now collaborating with his biographer, does not create
>>>>>> literary
>>>>>> art anymore. This makes me think whether Pynchon is still writing.
>>>>>> Wouldn't
>>>>>> it be a pity if Inherent Vice turned out to be his last book?
> 