Very misc related to grace

[Phillip Greenlief]

anyone on this list enjoying the writing of tatianna tolstaya? 

i like her stories (two collections i know of: ON THE GOLDEN PORCH, and SLEEPWALKER IN A FOG), but really liked her novel, THE SLYNNX ... sort of like reading a post-apocalyptic dostoevsky. but, you know, maybe not on the same level of understanding of humanity and all its itchies and scratchies. 

sent from phillip's iPhone

On Nov 28, 2012, at 8:06 PM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:

Thanks for the recommendations, Bekah.  I'm currently reading Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, at the urging of a friend.  I picked it up and discarded it early on, years ago, because the Sherlock Holmes parody (homage? plagiarism?) bugged me.  My friend's convinced me to stay with it.  I'm betting you've read it.  Thoughts?

LK


-----Original Message-----
From: Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Nov 27, 2012 4:21 PM
To: kelber at mindspring.com
Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: Very misc related to grace

Very nicely put, Laura -  and I have to say that although I'm one of those who prefer the "progressive-knotting-into" approach,  I can sympathize with those who enjoy the "anarchistic, exuberant splatter painting"  effect.   

I guess I read for the ideas although I certainly don't expect anything really new - just new twists or points of view  (hopefully).   Other times I read for the style and structure and literary stuff.  Sometimes I read for the plot - sometimes I read just to escape my lonely head. 

A few of my year's best reads: 

New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani
Wish You Were Here by Graham Swift
Galore by Michael Crummey
The Blue Mountain by Meir Shalev  (an older book)
The Agent Esmeralda by Don Delillo (short stories)
Reamde by Neal Stephenson
The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander 

Bekah


On Nov 27, 2012, at 10:05 AM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:

ATD is, in part, a novel about anarchy, but it doesn't have the anarchistic feel of GR - not talking about structure, per se, but the whole feel of the novel (or at least the way it made me feel as a reader); like looking at a giant splatter painting that, as one steps back and reflects, has more meaning than its haphazard execution would suggest it had.  In GR, Pynchon uses the phrase "a progressive knotting into" to describe an evacuation.  This actually seems to be a good description of his approach in ATD: systematically bringing together disparate elements (story-lines) to achieve some cohesive whole (grace? A picture of the beginnings of the war whose end is depicted in GR?).  I prefer the anarchistic, exuberant splatter-painting of GR, but I can sympathize with those who like the progressive-knotting-into approach.

Laura
-----Original Message----- 
From: David Morris 
Sent: Nov 27, 2012 12:48 PM 
To: Paul Mackin 
Cc: P-list 
Subject: Re: Very misc related to grace 

I think he was exploring ideas, theories, philosophy in GR.  Probably less so in his later works.  I don't think he's just being "entertaining" in GR.


On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 11:20 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:
Yes. The "Big Ideas" are means to ends--the ends being the inventive portrayal of the uncanny, the weird, the divine, the unknown,  not to exclude the scary and funny.

He doesn't write philosophical fiction or novels of ideas--he's not asking what is the purpose of our existence,  the meaning of life.

He might well have said they fly toward grace or somethin'.  It would have sounded too flippant but it wouldn't have changed anything.

So long as it works for him, and it pretty much has.

P



On 11/26/2012 9:10 PM, David Morris wrote:
Well said, Alice!

Paradox, Koans & Pretzil Logic R Pynchon.  Yin Yang is about all the blends of duality, rarely the opposites alone.  His BIG ideas aren't polemic, they're exploratory.

David Morris

On Monday, November 26, 2012, alice wellintown wrote:
Pynchon likes to take on the BIG ideas (Entropy, History, Virginity,
Gravity...Free Will & Grace) and turn them into pretzil logics or
force them into Koans that paradoxically turn out to be ironic book of
the dead (allusive parables) dead ends.

Now, I'm no expert on Grace, or Pynchon, but I suspect that his use of
Grace is an example of the propensity described above, and
specifically the paraodoxical BIG idea Grace/Free Will.

Why Pynchon does this or to what end is open to lotz of readings. I
suspect that he does it because he is lazy; he re-worksd old material
over and over again.