Kathryn Hume's other Pynchon stuff

[Paul Mackin]

On 9/12/2012 10:46 AM, Bled Welder wrote:
> This is why ultimately that fellow who writes these books can never be 
> a great writer--he knows nothing of the Midwest.

A lot of places have  claimed to be the meth capital of the United 
States, but I think Gillian Flynn in one of her Midwest based novels 
claims the title belongs to Missouri or Kansas,  don't remember which.  
It's due to the hopelessness and boredom of life in so many small towns 
in decline.

I used to take a fair amount of a milder form of that wonderful 
substance to ward off the boredom of going to a job every day. Haven't 
had that problem for going on 25 years now.

So in the end it's all about me.

P
>
> On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 9:39 AM, Rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com 
> <mailto: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 <mailto: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>
>     [mailto: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 <mailto: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/20120912/0c7d915e/attachment.html>