BE as P's attempt at Greek New Comedy

[rich]

Happiness is a warm gun compared to Real Love?


On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 7:37 PM, Rich Clavey <antizoyd at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I think a more apt comparison would be Mervyn Peake's late Titus Alone
> compared to Titus Groan and Gormenghast.
> Rich
>
>   ------------------------------
>  *From:* rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
> *To:* "“pynchon-l at waste.org“" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, October 8, 2013 4:23 PM
> *Subject:* Re: BE as P's attempt at Greek New Comedy
>
> BE reads like it was written by late stage Stephen King
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 9:24 AM, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Like.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Oct 8, 2013, at 8:07 AM, Heikki Raudaskoski <hraudask at sun3.oulu.fi>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > 383 pages in, I have the growing feeling that a work by Pynchon finally
> > meets the totalizing "requirements" Jameson set for postmodernism
> > decades ago:
> >
> > - the waning of affect
> > - blank and lukewarm pastiching
> > - the abolition of critical distance
> > - the all-pervasiveness of late capitalism with no space for opposition
> >
> >
> > Heikki
> >
> > On Mon, 7 Oct 2013, Fiona Shnapple wrote:
> >> but P has Jameson out again here.
> >>
> >> On Monday, October 7, 2013, John Bailey wrote:
> >>> I think this is the first time P has used the term late capitalism. I
> >>> haven't heard it outside the classroom myself, which made it stand
> >>> out.
> >>> On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 12:07 PM, Fiona Shnapple <
> fionashnapple at gmail.com<javascript:;>>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>> Another question: did Pynchon use the term late-capitalism in IV or in
> >>> prior
> >>>> novels? Been thinking about what Robin said about the Left Content in
> >>> this
> >>>> novel. I happened to be quite fond of a lady who may win the Nobel for
> >>>> prosecuting a certain individual who is guilty of genocide with
> products
> >>>> made in the USA.  How's that for a female heroine fucking a fascist?
> >>>>
> >>>> There is so much in the narrative drift of this book that point to
> such
> >>>> people, both the sinister and evil bastards who murder and waste life,
> >>> and
> >>>> those who fight them, protect the oppressed, resist the greeeed, the
> >>>> guzzling SUVs.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> So GTA, like so many Video Games is the topic of study in classes
> where
> >>>> Jameson is read.
> >>>>
> >>>> I don't think this is Game Over. That's not how I read it.
> >>>> On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 7:12 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com
> <javascript:;>>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> You know what these things mean FS.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 8:55 AM, Fiona Shnapple <
> fionashnapple at gmail.com<javascript:;>
> >>>>
> >>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>> John, I'd like to respond, but you lost me, so, if you don't mind,
> >>> some
> >>>>>> basic questions:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> What is the old Greek comedy? What is the new Greek comedy?
> >>>>>> What is a Coover take?
> >>>>>> What is close third person?  I looked this last one up and was not
> >>>>>> convinced
> >>>>>> that the definition provided is what you have in mind.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On Monday, October 7, 2013, John Bailey wrote:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I'm increasingly wondering if the new novel isn't Pynchon's
> conscious
> >>>>>>> attempt to write a New Comedy, in contrast to the Old Comedy that
> >>> most
> >>>>>>> of his work can be aligned with. Or, if we're going to get more
> >>>>>>> detailed, with the Menippean Satire that some have convincingly
> >>> argued
> >>>>>>> is his forte. But I'm sticking with the Old/New divide of the
> Greeks
> >>>>>>> for the moment.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> It would perhaps explain why this one jars so much for so many.
> It's
> >>>>>>> sitcom, not systems analysis, and when it gives us types (Jewish
> >>>>>>> American, African American, Italian American) it doesn't do so in
> the
> >>>>>>> obviously ironic way his earlier works did. It doesn't give us the
> >>>>>>> linguistic miracles that offer a way out of the existential morass
> in
> >>>>>>> the manner we're used to P providing. It tries to offer characters
> >>>>>>> we're supposed to care for, which is antithetical to Old Comedy,
> even
> >>>>>>> if that mode is a more compassionate one on a structural level. BE
> >>>>>>> leaves us with mere people, individuals, not even a hint of the
> >>>>>>> preterite, which is interesting and a problem.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> A Coover take on 2001-02 would look more like what we could have
> >>>>>>> expected from Bleeding Edge.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Why, in both IV and BE, has Pynchon returned to close third person
> >>>>>>> narration (with at least one exception in BE that I've noticed?)
> It's
> >>>>>>> not What He Does. Not even in Vineland. He toyed with it in COL49
> but
> >>>>>>> then declared it a minor work. Why go back there?
> >>>>>>> -
> >>>>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
>
>
>
>
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