Kathyrn Hume on Late Coover

[rich]

"As high postmodernism wanes, some of its leading figures have backed
away from the void and have tried to offer partial answers to life's
questions and some meaningful values. David Foster Wallace very
tentatively seeks an ethic; Pynchon has shifted from complete distrust
of every human organization (Gravity's Rainbow) to a strong and
arguably sentimental belief in families. Pynchon once felt even the
Red Cross could not escape the inherent evil of being an organization,
but his latest two novels have shown more acceptance of social
realities, and Inherent Vice celebrates negotiating society's
obstacles rather than anarchist destruction.
...
Despite rushes of joy at death bravely faced and fought by some of his
characters, Coover does not solidify these emotions into Meaning with
a capital M. They are new; but he does not seem to waver in his
apparently skeptical and materialist view of what lies beyond physical
existence and death. That tough-minded lack of compromise remains a
core value throughout his work. His refusal to provide meaning emerges
clearly if we compare Noir to Pynchon's latest novel, Inherent Vice,
also a loving parody of the hardboiled genre.
...the difference in main characters makes us aware if the void still
present in Coover's work that has disappeared from Pynchon's."

--Review of Contemporary Fiction, Spring 2012.

There's some points to contend with in her essay but I would
wholeheartedly agree that whether you call it meaning, old age
sentimentalism, a family man with a kid, what have you but Pynchon's
lack of void if you want to use Ms. Hume's term definitely has
effected at least how I read late Pynchon. Whereas I wasn't bothered
by such in M&D the later two novels it has returned in spades and boy
does it bother me. If you want to call it an edge, call it an edge.
Coover, who I adore, hasnt really lost it, that edge.

FWIW, another writer, Martin Amis, I think has succumbed to the same
ridiculous sentimentality, at least in his last novel, Lionel Asbo
which was simply dreadful and dripping with that family first time
father overly sentimental prose that would make anyone ill after a
simple serving.

anyway, that's how I see it

rich