Critical Thinking

[jochen stremmel]

second that.

2012/9/19 Phillip Greenlief <pgsaxo at pacbell.net>:
> pynchon is an artist of the highest caliber ... i have no intention of
> telling him how to go about his business. if you want something else from
> him, seek it elsewhere ... he is working out problems that he feels he needs
> to investigate ... write your own novels if you want something you're not
> getting from him or from life itself.
>
> sent from phillip's iPhone
>
> On Sep 19, 2012, at 2:38 PM, malignd at aol.com wrote:
>
> Isn't that what M&D was, larded down with all the lame jokes and "funny"
> names and sophomoric humor and talking ducks, etc., that he can't seem to
> let go of?  Do you really want more of that?  I would like to see him
> seriously engage the present and toss aside all of what have long become
> weary stylistic tics and dead-in-the-water go-tos.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>
> To: pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Wed, Sep 19, 2012 11:27 am
> Subject: Re: Critical Thinking
>
>
> Maybe what needs to happen is for Pynchon to bite the bullet and get Retro.
> That's what readers, including "highbrow" ones, probably want these days. So
> maybe, on the next novel, drop the Tomfoolery and get more with the times.
>
> In other words there's a lot of truth in what Rich said about the readers'
> tastes changing. Rich was talking about himself, but we can generalize it.
> Acknowledging this fact rather than laying it all on the author's writing
> quality makes sense to me.  So in a way it's Us not Him.  In a way, but not
> in a good way.
>
> What I'd like to see is for Pynchon to put his enormous talents to something
> we might actually enjoy reading.  Horror, Gothic, Mystery.  I'm not kidding.
> These genres can be done very well if the writer has talent.
>
> Please Mr. Pyncher, do it for your fans.
>
>
> P
>
>
>
>
> On 9/19/2012 10:44 AM, Keith Davis wrote:
>
> I enjoyed IV and I'll read it again sometime. Don't care if it's not
> earthshaking like GR. I took it as a parody of detective fiction. Still
> recognized P's voice. Still weird and funny.
>
> On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 2:22 AM, jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> "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
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>
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