Critical Thinking

[David Morris]

PuLeeeze! This is fanboy fail, because the issue is quality, value,
relevance, sexiness, timylessness, but NOT easiness.

On Wednesday, September 19, 2012, jochen stremmel wrote:

> who tells you that he's trying to reach a wider audience???
>
> He has fun writing Vineland and Inherent Vice - it's not heavy going
> like V and Gravity's Rainbow. I'm not saying it's easy to write, mind
> you! Easier to read, may be.
>
>
>
> 2012/9/19  <malignd at aol.com <javascript:;>>:
> > 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
> >> fruitfu
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