Kathryn Hume's other Pynchon stuff

[Bled Welder]

This is why ultimately that fellow who writes these books can never be a
great writer--he knows nothing of the Midwest.

On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 9:39 AM, Rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> PS
>
> Also liked the fact that he got around to referencing the Midwest
>
> Rich
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Sep 12, 2012, at 10:27 AM, "Monte Davis" <montedavis at verizon.net>
> wrote:
>
> > Less likely, I agree. But oh, when he does (AtD p. 71):
> >
> > "They pushed out into morning fields that went rolling all the way to
> every
> > horizon, the Inner American Sea, where the chickens schooled like
> herring,
> > and the hogs and heifers foraged and browsed like groupers and codfish,
> and
> > the sharks tended to operate out of Chicago or Kansas City-the
> farm-houses
> > and towns rising up along the journey like islands, with girls in every
> one,
> > Merle couldn't help but notice, the extravagantly kept promises of island
> > girls, found riding the electric trolley-lines that linked each cozy
> city to
> > each, or serenely dealing cards in the riverside saloons, slinging hash
> in
> > cafeterias you walked downstairs into out of the redbrick streets, gazing
> > through doorscreens in Cedar Rapids, girls at fences in front of long
> fields
> > in yellow light, Lizas and Chastinas, girls of the plains and of
> > profusely-flowered seasons that may never quite have been, cooking for
> > threshers far into and sometimes all through the nights of harvest,
> watching
> > the streetcars come and go, dreaming of cavalry boys ridden off down the
> > pikes, sipping the local brain tonic, tending steaming wash tubs full of
> > corn ears at the street corners with radiant eyes ever on the move, out
> in
> > the yard in Ottumwa beating a rug, waiting in the mosquito-thick
> evenings of
> > downstate Illinois, waiting by the fencepost where the bluebirds were
> > nesting for a footloose brother to come back home after all, looking out
> a
> > window in Albert Lea as the trains went choiring by."
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
> Behalf
> > Of David Morris
> > Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2012 9:35 AM
> > To: alice wellintown
> > Cc: pynchon -l
> > Subject: Re: Kathryn Hume's other Pynchon stuff
> >
> > I believe you re mostly correct in these statements.  Pynchon can still
> > write beautiful and elaborate prose (but I think he's less likely to make
> > page-length sentences as in GR).  But I got the distinct feeling in AtD
> that
> > it was in the service of not much.  It almost felt at times that he was
> > imitating himself or following a formula.
> >
> > David Morris
> >
> > On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 5:11 AM, alice wellintown
> > <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> So, I suspect that it is not the prose style, surely superior in the
> >> elder P of AGTD, that turns GR-Fanboys off. It is other things, like
> >> characters and themes and settings and, dare I say, plots. But it is
> >> not the style, not the words and sentences and imagery and the craft.
> >> No way! AGTD is superior hand at work. No serious reader or writer can
> >> deny that.
> >
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20120912/a9663295/attachment.html>