Modern world and paranoia

[Tom Beshear]

Judging from How Fiction Works, Wood's ideal is Henry James, which means he 
prizes psychological realism above all else. And that's not what Pynchon, 
DeLillo, Wallace, Vollmann, etc. etc., are doing.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bekah" <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
To: "Matthew Cissell" <macissell at yahoo.es>
Cc: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 10:08 AM
Subject: Re: Modern world and paranoia


Sounds to me like Wood gets confused between what he likes and what is good. 
Just because a reader doesn't personally like a book doesn't mean it's not 
fine lit.   Paranoia could be a part of 21st century realism the way 
religion was often a part of Victorian lit.  I tend to appreciate Wood, 
too - but I think he's stuck in the early 20th century about some things.

Bekah


On Apr 24, 2013, at 2:29 AM, Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es> wrote:

> Nowadays it doesn't take anytime at all to form a conspiracy theory. Go 
> ask Gene Rosen who helped some kids on his driveway the day of the Newtown 
> masacre, poor man.
> And now we have Boston. Several witnesses have identified the supect as 
> the perp, video footage, and now an admission of guilt - and people claim 
> it is a conspiracy; check out the movement to protect poor little Dzokhar 
> from THEM.
> So given all this we must address James Wood's claim (in his essay on 
> DeLillo from the Broken Estate): "Indeed, Underworld proves, once and for 
> all, or so I must hope, the incompatability of the political paranoid 
> vision with great fiction." Further along he says that paranoia is bad for 
> the novel. Hmm.
>
> I readily admit my admiration for Wood's erudition and critical prose, 
> however, my admiration ends there. In trying to advance his mission 
> (reshaping the view of literature through his choice of lens) he goes too 
> far out on a limb that will not support the weight of his ego or inflated 
> ideas.
>
> Now I suppose Alice might bring me up on all that but I can handle it. 
> Waddayathink AL? Is Jimmy Wood right about paranoia and the novel?
>
> ciao
> mc otis