And NOWHERE is Pynchon mentioned!

[Mark Kohut]

Paul,

A pretty massive project, no? I can't do it.

But what I mean is stuff like this: the riff on charisma (in the
post-war era) for example.  Right from Max Weber.

The bits of anarchism as a value and something that may be a branch of
Buddhism sprinkled throughout.

the Rilke.

even simply the way he uses a Crystal Palace....with its doubled
allusion to the great Exhibiit....

see how other novelists just write it straight, no layering of erudition.

so much more...

mark



On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 3:44 PM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm still curious in which sense is, say, GR a novel of ideas? Of course it
> is full of many felicitously presented abstruse and difficult thoughts, but,
> what I'd really like to see discussed are its ideas in the sense of
> opinions, hopes, or beliefs. Could someone  develop a list of these, and say
> whether they are, in the course of the novel, sought after, attained,
> rejected, or given up as hopeless.  Does Slothrop's quest, for example,
> qualify as one of these?
>
> I need to be enlighten as much as Tyrone.
>
> P
>
> On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 1:32 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> What you said, Peter (and well). It's hard to cut through the accumulated
>> undergrowth of
>>
>> "Pynchon books are status tokens for pretentious hipsters with post-horn
>> tattoos who never actually get through anything but CoL49"
>>
>> "Pynchon is the perfect starting point for another look at those wild &
>> wacky Sixties, [because I, the litchat writer, never got through anything
>> but CoL49 and a review of Vineland]"
>>
>> "Pynchon is funny names, pop-culture references, stylistic acrobatics,
>> kinky sex, and a Britannica + Google's worth of obscure historical and
>> scientific allusions"
>>
>> "Pynchon holds the Salinger Chair of Reclusive Authorship, so he's weird
>> from the jump because he's never sat down with Charlie Rose or been
>> photographed birding with Jonathan Franzen"
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 11:37 AM, Peter M. Fitzpatrick
>> <petopoet at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> 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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