Critical Thinking

[malignd at aol.com]

And this, if true and intentional, is depressing.  Are you applauding his desire to reach a wider audience?



-----Original Message-----
From: Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
To: Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>
Cc: bandwraith <bandwraith at aol.com>; pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>; rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
Sent: Wed, Sep 19, 2012 2:24 pm
Subject: Re: Critical Thinking


Seems to me Pynchon managed to appeal to a wider audience than ever with IV. I don't need him to appeal to the masses with kinder, gentler novels to read. I'm damned glad of all he's given me to argue with.


On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 10:19 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:

          
    

      Interesting. I never realized this but think you're right. There's      also a reference to The Magic Mountain which was first noticed      here by Rich during the AtD-group-read: Reef and Yashmeen are      introduced to each other by Kit in the Sanatorium      Böpfli-Spazzoletta on the Swiss side of Lago Maggiore, and      Yashmeen can certainly remind the reader on Clawdia Chauchat in      more than one way. Her teasing ambivalent behavior in the first      place. Both are also very emancipated women taken the standards of      the time. Sexually and intellectually. (Clawdia Chauchat is not      into higher math, but she talks the proletarian revolution with      Naphta.) Right after this Pynchon makes the link more plausible by      the séance scene which lets Reef experience the late Webb just      like Hans Castorp experiences his late cousin Joachim Ziemßen in      the last chapter - episode: "Fragwürdigstes" - of The Magic      Mountain.  And about 150 pages later we find "Davos" and "magic"      appearing in one and the same sentence. Guess that's enough to      make a case (cf. Against the Day, pp. 664-673, 815). The common      macro theme of Der Zauberberg and Against the Day      is of course the reconstruction of the ur-catastrophe WWI.   

      
      On 19.09.2012 17:13, bandwraith at aol.com wrote:
    


    
I gotta think that the relationship of Hunter      Pennhallow and Beppo, aka Dally, as it's portrayed in Venice- the      artistic distance, the shared humanity and respect for      individuality: i.e., cool concern- is at least a comment on, if      not a reply to, Mann's Death in Venice. Not a put down, by any      means- no indication of "Demian Metaphysics," etc., but an      acknowledgement that art, and the art of fiction, have also      evolved since then.      
      
      
      -----Original Message-----      
      From: Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>      
      To: rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>; pynchon -l      <pynchon-l at waste.org>      
      Sent: Tue, Sep 18, 2012 5:09 pm      
      Subject: Re: Critical Thinking      
      
      
      
      
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.      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
    
    
  







-- 
"Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant

 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20120919/20a0896d/attachment.html>