Critical Thinking

[jochen stremmel]

"Contrast it with IV, where the style is P at his worst."

Some examples?

"There i nothing wrong with Larry's story, but the telling of it is poor."

Some proof?

The rest of your reasoning, Pynchon-wise, literature-wise, is sound, in my eyes.



> On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 5:07 PM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>> one of the things I wonder about is as you say re GR-- Pynchon
>> "historical facts which were hard to find in middle of the road
>> history book." One of Pynchon' shtick was the overly-detailed
>> authentic voice/fact/scenarios he dreams up. but now with the hyper
>> info drip feed/accessible 24/7, is this not as cool as it once was?
>> i'm trying to denote clearly why say AtD is missing the punch of
>> previous books. is it he culled all the facts and what came out was
>> not so interesting as before, or we're all encyclopedias now (that'll
>> be my banner slogan, ha!) so if you replicate an era precisely but you
>> lack a convincing story, it doesnt matter how well you write--it still
>> comes off as dull or all research. M&D had those characteristics also
>> but the underpinning story was just as good I thought.  In short, I
>> guess I still enjoy Pynchon for the language, the level of the
>> sentence like I noted before about DeLIllo but not so much anymore the
>> stories he's telling or the level of historical detail and research
>> that went into the book.
>>
>> p.s. Kai I can appreciate that you argue with non-novelists. I wish I
>> had the stamina to read philosophy but I don't. guess as Coover says
>> we need stories or I need stories.
>>
>> rich
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 3:27 PM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen
>> <lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>>>
>>>> my favorite novelist
>>>
>>> Make that novelists: The slip - if telling at all - probably has to do with
>>> the fact that I reread Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain) in early summer
>>> and - Hey man, the best book! - it simply rocked my mind. But Pynchon is
>>> definitely still on my list!
>>>
>>>
>>> On 18.09.2012 21:12, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Myself I don't have this that much with novels anymore. I argue in my mind
>>> with philosophers, social scientists, or mystics. Not with novelists, whose
>>> works I consider more to be like symphonies or poetry. To argue with Pynchon
>>> about, say, his take on the Balkans question in AtD does not appear to be
>>> fruitful to me. It's like argueing with Ezra Pound on Confucianism when you
>>> read The Cantos. Gravity's Rainbow way back was different insofar as it
>>> contains historical facts which were hard to find in middle of the road
>>> history books. Of course it still interests me what my favorite novelist
>>> think about this and that - like Thomas Mann's changing attitudes towards
>>> the West over the years -, but basically it's all about melody and rhythm.
>>>
>>> On 18.09.2012 15:41, rich wrote:
>>>
>>> something ive been mulling over in my mind recently--do you find
>>> yourself having conversations with the novels you read (and indirectly
>>> the novelist I suppose), I mean arguments, questions, confusions,
>>> anger at times, too. I wonder why despite feeling somewhat negative
>>> about Pynchon's last two books I continue to engage them. Far be it
>>> for me to want to be one of those guys or gals who harp ad nauseum
>>> about the things they obviously hate. I mean if you dont feel the need
>>> to argue with the writer you're reading, that must mean something.
>>> Pynchon has really annoyed me the last few yrs (much of which
>>> admittedly is not his fault--Ive changed, he hasn't or maybe he has
>>> who knows).  there seems to be some benefit for me to argue with him.
>>> guess i'll just continue on with that
>>>
>>> rich
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>