TP on the shelves, not M&D

[kelber at mindspring.com]

I'm not sure TP-lite (IV and BE?) is the gateway drug to GR (assuming that's the general goal), any more than marijuana (particularly now, when the Usual Suspects - Pharms, Tobacco, assorted Corps - are positioning to make huge profits off legalized product) would be the natural gateway drug to heroin. It's a long way from these books (particularly a movie-poster-cover version)to the dense shifts in narrative, wordplay, and historical riffs of GR (and M&D). I still think COL49 functions as the best oxycontin to GR's heroin (to belabor the metaphor). There are many roads in, but I think the older books still hold up and the path is more sure.

I gave my daughter, (a creative writing major) COL49, and she's ready to move on to V (a parallel journey to many of her high school friends, who are sadly addicted to oxy, and posed to move on).

Laura

-----Original Message-----

From: matthew cissell 


   I propose that after finsihing up his mammoth literary project, TP was able to indulge himself with some "lighter" fare. (I mean, what does a writer do after finishing a work? Start another. What does s/he do with it? Try to sell it. Simple.) This TP "light" will make a great gateway experience to his other works, allowing his readership to grow over time. Somewhere some young person will see IV and buy the book and then get into Pynchon's oevre. That's not going to happen to Nicholas Sparks.
  

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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l