Kathyrn Hume on....

[bandwraith at aol.com]

I don't think it's an either/or sort of thing. Both interpretations are 
in play, much like whether or not she is fucking her boyfriend. It's 
better that way, no? Left open. There are a few certainties (and prices 
to be paid for openness): The creeping fig has advanced through the 
window in the opening of the novel, and, technology has advanced, i.e., 
"rude updates" have occurred while Rip Van Wheeler has been snoozing.

Not sure I get your drift, re: "af and ac," but I'd hazard a guess that 
most perennial posters have perceived personal "whispers" in the 
text(s) but not mentioned them for various reasons, or another, like: 
arousing suspicions of acute paranoia.


-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Mon, Sep 10, 2012 1:24 am
Subject: Re: Kathyrn Hume on Late Coover



bandwraith made the following rather surprising assertion;
If you read ATD really closely, I assert, you can make out a few 
liftings from the p-list, scattered about. I don't care to elaborate, 
but I believe they're there.
 
the bits about af and ac, no doubt...
 
I would ask:
If you were Pynchon, wouldn't you be curious about what all the 
postings were about? I can't believe he hasn't peeked, and probably 
come away with a mixture of amazement and chagrin. It might help to 
explain some of the bogosity in ATD.


i used to think that glenn scheper was an avatar of mr pynchon but 
gradually came to believe in his independent existence
 
At any rate, whether his later work is lousy or not, I'll leave to you. 
You're much better read than me. But I disagree with your primary 
assertion that he has become sentimental, or less "edgy" or whatever- 
if anything, he has left the traditional image of the family in a 
bloody shambles. The final pages of Vineland comes to mind,
with Prarie alone, amongst the redwoods, in her sleeping bag, 
masturbating, begging the departed Vond to come back and take her away, 
promising to come this time. There are many more examples, but I won't 
waste your time. You are either receptive or you're not. Go with 
Coover.

 

 
wait, i never got an idea about what prairie was doing with her hands 
in that scene...
 
Anyway, Coover definitely rocks the casaba, and i hope to find time to 
read the rest of his books -- i read the one with the football player 
in it and it was wonderful...
 
so that's good advice, imho
 
but for those of us who are somewhat receptive to the message in the 
later p-texts, and do not see a degeneration or a regressive 
nodding-out of...
 
those who would not call those later p-texts cliched sentimental 
treatment of the family, but rather - as we travel under the sands of 
time - a swiveling of the same satirical periscope (yet capable of 
sympathy), whose lenses respond to that peculiar clarity of kirghizian 
light that suffuses the earlier works, on its turret, to point at these 
new topics, tempores and mores...
 
i'd agree that there is more there to see