Franzen and Pynchon

Sun Aug 18 14:22:27 CDT 2013

Elfriede Jelinek is Austrian.

As is, incidentally, the author Franzen translated and annotated for
publication in October: Karl Kraus (1874-1936). If I remember correctly the
article in Harper's magazine about Pynchon is part of F's annotations to
The Kraus Project (http://www.melleragency.com/shared/detail.php?id=24916).

(Karl Kraus is the guy here quoted by me with his aphorism from 1909:
"Progress makes wallets out of human skin.")

2013/8/18 <eburns at gmail.com>

> What about that German author who won the Nobel and had translated Pynchon?
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> Sender: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 10:24:24
> To: alice wellintown<alicewellintown at gmail.com>; pynchon -l<
> pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Reply-To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Franzen and Pynchon
>
> Well, Ms. Hume was only another student, she said, when she
> wrote of the realness of The Whole Sick Crew in her experience....
>
> She is one example I know, besides the (fewer) women (than males)
> on the plist.
>
> I meant to wholeheartedly agree.....i have taken mental and actual physical
> plist note of writers who say they are influenced by TRP's
> work.......cannot remember
> a woman and I can remember a couple who said they did not like his
> work......
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Cc:
> Sent: Sunday, August 18, 2013 12:14 PM
> Subject: Re: Franzen and Pynchon
>
> Kathryn Hume is wonderful but  is not what I meant, exactly, as she is
> a professor of English Literature whose area of study Pynchon slides
> across like butter on  park bench in August.
>
> Fewer female than male readers generally, yes, but more specifically,
> authors of fiction who name P as an influence, even an anxiety. Say,
> the Female DeLillo.
>
> I agree that the early fiction, even with a female quester (Lot49) is
> not the stuff that female writers find worthy of the highest form of
> flattery, literary theft.
>
> VL, of course, seems half written by P's wife and her feminist friends.
>
> And IV seems a cum back right at them.
>
> AGTD is a mystery to me still. I re-read it, but I still don't know
> quite what to make o fit other than I think it the best parodic and
> paradoxical prose P has produced.
>
>
>
> On 8/18/13, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I think there is a lot of exploration that could be done into
> > why women, even--or esp. well-read female writers, seem not much
> > interested, nor influenced by him, per Alice below........
> >
> > Some of those youthful male attitudes in the early fiction, for which TRP
> > later apologized, may be one reason....but a good female reader like Ms.
> K
> > Hulme
> > defended The Whole Sick Crew's 'hysterical realism" [term wasn't used
> then]
> > by
> > saying she knew groups [of guys] just like that......
> >
> >
> >
> > From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> > To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> > Sent: Sunday, August 18, 2013 11:34 AM
> > Subject: Re: Franzen and Pynchon
> >
> >
> > The History of Literature tells us that critics make too much of
> > anxiety and influence. There are authors out there who wouldn't get
> > passed page one of a Pynchon novel, but write beautiful and amazing
> > books.
> >
> > Pynchon is fur sure over-Rated and his influence over-Stated. No? I
> > mean, do any of the great females writing today pay him a complement?
> > Isn't he more about male readers who want to look highbrow on the
> > subway in Brooklyn these days? Just sayin.
> >
> > On 8/18/13, Tom Beshear <tbeshear at att.net> wrote:
> >> Franzen retreated into social realism, with welcome touches of the
> comic.
> >> He
> >> does what he does but it's not on a level with P. or DFW or WTV --
> Europe
> >> Central is a masterpiece and I hope he lives to finish the Seven Dreams.
> >>  ----- Original Message -----
> >>  From: eburns at gmail.com
> >>  To: rich ; owner-pynchon-l at waste.org ; Lemuel Underwing
> >>  Cc: Joseph Tracy ; P-list List
> >>  Sent: Sunday, August 18, 2013 6:43 AM
> >>  Subject: Re: Franzen and Pynchon
> >>
> >>
> >>  A-and Franzen has to know he's not even playing in the same league!
> It's
> >> hard to imagine any American writer not being "influenced" and/or in awe
> >> of
> >> Pynchon and Gaddis, but of course the challenge is to move beyond,
> >> through...not get stuck in.
> >>
> >>  There are some examples: Vollman springs to mind (his "You Bright and
> >> Risen Angels" was certainly influenced by TRP, but he has gone off on a
> >> frolic of his own (with mixed, but always fascinating) results. Foster
> >> Wallace is another example. There are many others.
> >>
> >>  Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
> >>
> >>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>  From: rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
> >>  Sender: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org
> >>  Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 20:16:00 -0400
> >>  To: Lemuel Underwing<luunderwing at gmail.com>
> >>  Cc: Joseph Tracy<brook7 at sover.net>; P-list List<pynchon-l at waste.org>
> >>  Subject: Re: Franzen and Pynchon
> >>
> >>
> >>  Malcolm Lowry was practically driven to despair by as he saw it the
> >> onerous influence of past masters. Figured Franzen got it out of his
> >> system
> >> with his excoriation of William Gaddis in the New Yorker. Guess Franzen
> >> hasn't
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>  On Sat, Aug 17, 2013 at 7:37 PM, Lemuel Underwing <
> luunderwing at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>    I have a subscription and ran out to the mailbox after reading your
> >> post, Joseph.
> >>
> >>    My goodness was that article unbearable.... Franzen never casts off
> >> Pynchon, and is effectively subsumed by him along with others, I don't
> >> know
> >> how he got so popular except as perhaps a "Fad"...
> >>
> >>
> >>    That said I still enjoy Harpers, if only because I currently cannot
> >> afford a sub. to Lapham's Quarterly...
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>    On Sat, Aug 17, 2013 at 9:32 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>      There is an article in the new Harper's(sept 2013) by J Franzen
> >> titled A Different Kind of Father in which he reviews the role of
> Pynchon
> >> as
> >> a literary "father" he later rejected.
> >>
> >>      The issue also has a good article by  William Vollman on his
> >> experience  with the FBI  and Border Agents along with FOIA research
> into
> >> his FBI files. For no discernible reason he was a suspect in the
> unabomber
> >> case. Not quite Slothrop but Kafkaesque with a side of Marx brothers.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>
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