English Majors

[Keith Davis]

...for help and support, or abuse!
On Sep 30, 2012 5:27 PM, "Keith Davis" <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm reading Foster, too, after the discussion here. Fun and enlightening.
> You'll have a blast with GR, and you have all the veteran readers here
>  On Sep 30, 2012 4:49 PM, "Brian Kempf" <btkempf at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I really appreciate everyone's responses here. It's incredible to see how
>> folks from all walks of life share an interest in such an author of such
>> depth and breadth skirting the periphery of the mainstream. It definitely
>> takes a different "type" of person to enjoy TRP though I'm surprised at how
>> few of those who responded are actually employed in academia. I'm very glad
>> that I found the P-list.
>>
>> I read CoL49 on the suggestion of a poster on a discussion board who
>> noticed that I had just finished Joe Heller's *Catch-22* (a favorite of
>> mine that I plan to re-read critically soon) as well as Vonnegut's *
>> Slaughterhouse-Five*. This was during the summer between my junior and
>> senior years of high school, mind you. I struggled greatly through CoL49
>> because I was immature as a reader. However, I was captivated by the
>> concept as paranoia as TRP described it, and the concept of an over-arching
>> conspiracy theory in the novel with no real payoff was also particularly
>> enjoyable for me. I never really "let go" of Pynchon, and this year read
>> *V.*. My struggle to understand this as well is what brought me to the
>> P-list.
>>
>>  Now that I've finished both *V. *and Col49, I'm re-reading CoL49 to
>> pick up what I missed, this time with a companion reader in hand. After
>> that, I'm tackling *Gravity's Rainbow*, perhaps within the next few
>> months or so. My reading list is growing at a rate faster than I will ever
>> keep up with, but doesn't this happen to everyone? I really would like to
>> tackle *Ulysses *and *Infinite Jest*, having read material by both Joyce
>> and DFW. However, being a double-majoring freshman in college, I probably
>> will read those books in piecemeal. I also just finished Foster's *How
>> to Read Literature like a Professor*, which I saw suggested here. It
>> really does help make sense of reading, since I believe that I hadn't been
>> doing it the right way.
>>
>> B
>>
>> P.S. Matt- thanks for the congrats. I'll probably end up adding history
>> or polsci as well, but Econ/business is certainly no place for folks like
>> me who cannot do math to save their life.
>>
>>
>> On Sep 30, 2012, at 10:03 AM, Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es> wrote:
>>
>> B,
>>
>> Your post has elicited responses from a number of  P-listers, some of
>> whom don't post very regularly. Whatsmore it has got some to offer more
>> information than their major - the bio bits are interesting. You see I
>> share this curiousity about the Pynchon reading public. My own intention is
>> to soon post a survey here and get some real data for my own research. (It
>> would be interesting to know when and at what age people read PYnchon, but
>> also occupation, and another of number of things. Not just to create some
>> demographic chart but rather to unveil the relations between social
>> practices and background.)
>> Here's my own bit: I graduated (in absentia - I was studying abroad) with
>> a BA in English  from Southern Illinois University in 1997. Additional
>> coursework towards minors in Philosophy and science (genetics); Mark, I'm a
>> bit Manque as well. Took time out and worked for a spell at Washington
>> UNiversity as a lab drone helping map the human genome.
>> In 2000 I came to Spain and started teaching English as a 2nd language; I
>> decided to go back to school to save my sanity (how ironic). In the
>> coursework I came across a book that I had seen years before on a friend's
>> shelf (I had even picked up the book and thought about borrowing it - how
>> different things might be now), The CoL49. My academic focus then swithced
>> to Pynchon.
>>
>> Oddly enough, in none of my previous course work had I come across
>> Pynchon. I even did a 400 level course on "Postmodernism" and he was not
>> included, but then the professor made it clear that she didn't want the
>> same old male hegemony imposed on the syllabus. Moreover, I have also met
>> people with literature degrees that had no idea of Pynchon, as others here
>> have mentioned. And so?
>>
>> Well it's one thing to have read an author that no one else knows, even
>> an "important" writer, but quite another for that same author to be used in
>> mass media cultural prducts. Of course, I'm thinking of TP's participation
>> in the Simpsons but also a piece from The Onion.
>> http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-reading-pynchon-on-bus-takes-pains-to-make-cov,3192/
>>   Try to imagine this piece with any other name from the Ladbrokes Nobel
>> betting list. My point is that Pynchon has a very special place in the
>> field of cultural production and research on his reading public may reveal
>> some interesting things e.g that his readers are NOT limited to the halls
>> of academia and that TP is NOT a writer's wrt'iter.
>>
>> All the best,
>>
>> Matt Cissell
>>
>> ps congrats on the switch from the sad science, may it be a happy one.
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Brian Kempf <btkempf at gmail.com>
>> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2012 7:09 PM
>> Subject: English Majors
>>
>> I'm curious about how many P-listers here have degrees in English,
>> Literature, or something similar. I just transferred from a BS in Economics
>> to a BA in English at my school.
>> I've yet to meet anyone who reads (or knows) Pynchon, so I'm curious as
>> to what those who do studied or what fields they work in.
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> B
>>
>>
>>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20120930/127929c7/attachment.html>