Wood vs. Tanner on Paranoid Plots & Camus and Conrad and James too

[alice wellintown]

I mentioned _Call It Sleep_, Henry Roth's brilliant novel because Tanner's
discussion of voices in DeLillo struck me as a bit Euro-centric, a blind
spot that plagues Wood, and because Tanner starts with Joyce and
Beckett, the European masters who had a huge influence on the
Anglo-American novel and the American theater, in fiction the influence on
Henry Roth's novel, which is, set in NYC, and which includes perhaps the
best use of NYC languages in fiction, but will also mention it for its
brilliant descriptions of NYC. Completed a study of Lower East Side fiction
recently, most of it Jewish novels, and in that list are more examples,
back with it later.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americannovel/timeline/callitsleep.html



On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 10:56 PM, Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> Lots of authors write contemporary New York and yes I enjoyed  "Lush Life"
> quite a lot.   I think  my personal favorite (except DeLillo) is Mark
> Helprin's  "Winter's Tale."  Helprin's recent "Sunlight and Shadows"  is
> really enjoyable where he describes post WWII New York - lots of nostalgia
> there,  romantic,  not a word of irony in the whole book but the prose gets
> a bit overdone.    I also thoroughly enjoyed Kavalier and Clay by Michael
> Chabon.
>
> Fwiw,  Delillo also wrote New York in Great Jones Street,  Cosmopolis,
> Falling Man and the first part of Point Omega as well as into bits of other
> novels.
>
> Bekah
>
> On Apr 29, 2013, at 3:08 PM, Jeff Sunbury <jsunbury at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I've never been to New York, but Richard Price's 'Lush Life' describes
> cross-sectional social strata of Lower East Side better than I'd ever want
> to experience IRL. Cut as fine as a cytologic specimen.
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 4:41 PM, <malignd at aol.com> wrote:
> > Not current no longer but Mr. Sammler's Planet is pretty damn good.
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
> > To: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> > Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> > Sent: Mon, Apr 29, 2013 5:05 pm
> > Subject: Re: Wood vs. Tanner on Paranoid Plots & Camus and Conrad and
> James too
> >
> > just asking ma'am for you to give some examples of other current
> > writers who have written about New York City as perceptively as
> > DeLillo. not talking about travel lit, fiction
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 4:58 PM, alice wellintown
> > <
> > alicewellintown at gmail.com
> > > wrote:
> > > Rich,
> > >
> > > I'm surprized that youare challanging me on this. As I am sure you are
> aware
> > > many authors of great, very good, or decent prose fiction write
> excellent
> > > travel literature.
> > >
> > > And then there are those who write travel literature and don't write
> too
> > > much else. These are, again, as I know you are quite aware, published
> in
> > > magazines, journals, and even in newspapers.
> > >
> > > The best are collected in anthologies, put out by Norton and Cambridge
> and
> > > Oxford and so on.
> > >
> > > And, of course, there are the authors of history. A selection of
> passages
> > > from the best books about NYC will match anything Pynchon and Dellio
> have
> > > written about the Big Apple.
> > >
> > > In one of his essays (Slow Learner?) Pynchon mentions literary theft.
> Well,
> > > novelists beg borrow and steal from their non-fiction brothers and
> sisters
> > > all the time. And, while fiction makers may weave these stolen strings
> and
> > > woven mats into grand tapestries, thus altering the original as they
> do so,
> > > though not always improving on them, they often do this not because
> they are
> > > lazy but because they admire the original and recognize its excellence.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 1:58 PM, rich <
> > richard.romeo at gmail.com
> > > wrote:
> > >>
> > >> ms. wellington--
> > >>
> > >> prove it. who are you talking about?
> > >>
> > >> On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 12:41 PM,  <
> > bandwraith at aol.com
> > > wrote:
> > >> > n. In fact, there are lots who do a
> > >> > finer job than either Don or Pynchon.
> > >> >
> > >> >
> > >> >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>
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