And NOWHERE is Pynchon mentioned!

[Peter M. Fitzpatrick]

Here is my two cents.

     I love to read Pynchon because of his absolute bravery and uninhibited
imagination. His "ideas" are never lifeless, neutral, or abstract, but
embodied, political, and provocative. He takes chances that remind me a
great deal of James Joyce in Finnegans Wake. I don't think Joyce was
particularly concerned with the hoi polloi or popularity and neither he or
Pynchon will EVER be found among the books sold in the big box stores like
Target, WalMart, Menards, etc. (this is an American phenomenon, where the
likes of Cussler, Grisham, Patterson, etc, are found in the far reaches of
almost every mass-market shelf space available, with one or two copies of
each author present, changing with each new release.)
      There is room for this kind of literature,of course, but there are
those of us who demand a more inventive and boundary-testing fare. Pynchon
does manage to ascend into pure lyrical poetry that almost demands aural
interpretation - I do enjoy listening to an audio version of "Against the
Day". Finnegans Wake is also best read aloud and listened to. These are
poetic voices and are suitable for analysis of their poetics.  Much like
Bakhtin devoted his life to analyzing the poetics of Dostoyevski, there
will be scholars devoted to studying both Joyce and Pynchon. Yes, some of
this smacks of the academic machinery that produces English department
secondary source reductions that misinterpret and misconstrue. But that is
the nature of interpretation. It is polyvalent and polyphonic (ala'
Bakhtin) by rights. There is a reason such books attract scholastic
attention.
      They are ideas, voices, conceptions; "Weltanschauungs" in short.
Simultaneously political, historical, and philosophical, I think we
intuitively characterize them as novels of Ideas because they last longer
than the commercial ones, thereby resembling Plato's World of Forms, or
Ideals. Not quite eternal, no, but of more lasting value than say, a Janet
Evanovich # 55,  ( I have read one or two of hers, by the way.)

   -Pete

On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 4:49 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:

> If inclusion on course syllabuses is indicative of the respect teachers
> have for an author, than our man P is respected in the academy. His works
> are taught at all the tier one Colleges and highest ranked Universities in
> the US, at State Universities and Colleges,  to humanities and
> non-humanities students.
>
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 6:42 PM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I'm glad there are some out there who respect our guy.
>>
>> P
>>
>>
>
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