Spam?

[Joe Allonby]

Dave Monroe is one p-lister who keeps the whole thing going. I read
most of his posts. I can't imagine a group read without him.

On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 10:31 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> I tried to start a thread about the Title of BE. Perhaps a bit too late after the title was known.  Would have liked to hear other thoughts, but apparently not of interest.
>  I think spam is a bit harsh, but there seems like there is an extra flurry of fluffery when a P book is published. In some ways I think we are too polite and people should feel free to  respond to the book with first reactions, and perhaps a warning. The truth is we are weirdly polite about a non-spoiler approach, especially considering how harsh we( self included)  can be on other topics.  Maybe this topic could be an opportunity for some p-list meta-cognition. What would make the list better as we do this group read. My chief annoyance is with a kind of all or nothing evaluation where something is rot or great, funny or stupid. Not just I hate it, but  It IS worthless. It fails to treat individual tastes and reactions as valid and poses the notion that there is some Angel of of Lit crit whose truth is THE truth. There are intrinsic qualities that mark greater and lesser work, but calling it junk or geius is rarely informative in that regard with a serious artist.
>  That said after a slow reading of 10  chapters I am bouncing between extremes of amusement,  intrigue and strong annoyance.
>
>
> On Sep 23, 2013, at 4:33 AM, Carvill John wrote:
>
>> Dave, I can't speak for Jill, but I did not have you in mind when I replied to her post. I just re-subscribed, and am having a hard time fighting through the spam, no question about it. I see some old names on here, and a few new ones, but I have yet to see any threads that seem worthwhile.
>>
>> As for reviews, I haven't finished the book itself yet so don't want to read them, but will get to them once I'm done. As you know, Tim Ware's Pynchon wiki collates them, and for me that is enough, I don't need a flurry of URLs in my inbox. Now, if there's particular point in a review somebody wants to discuss - or just the general dismissive tendency on the part of mainstream reviewers - then that's fine. But if you're just sending me a link I'll see elsewhere then I'm not that interested.
>>
>> I'll eventually be writing some sort of online review myself, and so far I'm worried about that. I'm 100 page in and thinking so far this is Pynchon's worst book by a mile. I have heard that it picks up and there have been a couple of decent passages thus far, but on the whole I am finding it quite annoying. If this wasn't Pynchon, I'd be rating this book, based on my progress so far, as 'poor'.
>>
>> Don't stop posting on my/our/anybody's account, Dave. But given your experience and intelligence, I'd welcome more of your own words and less of the redundant URLs.
>>
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>> Keep cool
>> J
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