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

[rich]

fwiw, I'm not claiming DeLillo above other great writers in and around
NY--just that his work speaks the most to me my history/heritage.

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 5:28 AM, alice wellintown
<alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
>> > >> >
>> > >> >
>> > >> >
>> > >
>> > >
>> >
>> >
>>
>