And NOWHERE is Pynchon mentioned!

[Ray Easton]

But "a novel is erudite" and "a novel is a novel of ideas" do not mean at 
all the same thing, do they?  For example (I am sure there are better 
ones), surely _Lolita_ is not a novel of ideas.

Ray

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On December 14, 2015 3:02:53 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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