TP on the shelves, not M&D

[Becky Lindroos]

Good stuff there,  Steven - good to know - maybe it’s validating or something ?  Glad to hear about TRP, DeLillo and McCarthy - there are just too many authors and there's less and less time.   

A friend tried to put together an ideal syllabus for an American (or English - ?)  Lit 101.  He had great stuff on it, but it was really about 2 years worth of hard reading - I think what makes or breaks a teacher is the culling, the editing, the getting down to the real substance of the subject - 

I could go on into History, Math, Writing, Science, etc.  but there’s more to learn these days, it’s probably more important to learn some of it (for jobs),  and meanwhile,  the kids are hooked on Instagram (or whatever).  

Bekah 



>> On Jan 12, 2015, at 11:06 AM, Steven Koteff <steviekoteff at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Pynchon runs neck and neck with DeLillo on bookstore shelves and university syllabi in my experience (I'm 25, BA in English, last year of an MFA program right now). Held at about the same level and in the same type of esteem by most people I talk to. 
>> 
>> Gass gets very little attention from anybody my age, unfortunately. Have come across a short story or two in writing workshops, never seen a novel assigned (Omensetter's is overlooked and does not ring of the contemporary anymore in the way TRP/DD do; the bigger books like The Tunnel aren't practical for college courses, I think, and it seems like even the professors haven't really read most of those anyway; something to be said for the snowballing effect of how widely read something is, popularity necessitating reading, etc., especially since a great deal of the reading people do has to do with status, both academic and social, so on). 
>> 
>> CoL49 is kind of the perfect book, syllabus-wise. Dense, very much of and about a particular segment of modernity, resonant, unquestionably canonical though not (by most undergrads) universally read, and, maybe most importantly, short/digestible. Leaves room for other stuff on the syllabus. 
>> 
>> Barth you'll see on the odd syllabus, Coover too though much, much less. You'll probably see Richard Powers getting assigned more than those dudes, unfortunately.  
>> 
>> David Foster Wallace seems to be picking up steam and esteem in college courses though has a ways to go to catch up to Pynchon and DeLillo. He's really polarizing, though. Lots of academics seem to refuse to pay attention. Franzen lagging behind a ways but still getting university attention not least of all because he's not too hard for most undergrads to understand, I think.
>> 
>> Gaddis doesn't get much attention aside from the occasional specific and ambitious syllabus, I think. He is more known about than known, I think. Though that's true of all these dudes to varying degrees. 
>> 
>> Cormac McCarthy is kinda of but not about modernity, I guess (at least not so explicitly), and seems to get assigned almost as often as Pynchon. But again this may be more true on the artistic/writerly (as opposed to academic) side of English departments.
>> 
>> Nabokov shows up a lot on these types of syllabi. Lolita and maybe more so Pale Fire. Percy's The Moviegoer on occasion. Barthelme (you know which one) more often than Percy but less than Nabokov by a long way. 
>> 
>> Roth is of course all over the place though maybe suffers a bit (as some of the others do) for having written so much, there being less a feeling of one book being definitive (American Pastoral comes closest). 
>> 
>> In terms of academic attention right now, at least according to what I've seen, maybe: 
>> Pynchon/DeLillo/Nabokov/McCarthy/Roth
>> Barth/elme
>> DFW
>> Others
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 7:03 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Always some Pynchon, seldom the others. What i would also like to know, and have
>> never tried to find out but might now, is are any BARTH, GASS OR
>> COOVER generally on
>> syllabi s CofL49 so often is? Maybe you know, Matthew?
>> 
>> On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 6:35 AM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> In Australia Pynchon doesn't seem to be very widely read but he's
>>> certainly ahead of the pack in the way you mention, bookstore-wise.
>>> I'd put his presence well ahead of Gass, Barthes and Coover (for any
>>> of which I've had to waver divining rods around second-hand bookshops
>>> near decent local universities for even the slightest chance of
>>> reading).
>>> 
>>> Generally Pynchon's books here have almost (but not equally) about the
>>> same availability as those of Atwood, Nabokov, Borges, Morrison, Le
>>> Guin, Rushdie, McEwan. The relatively recent Vintage reissues with the
>>> crazy-busy-cartoon-pop-art-Bruegel covers flooded the stores and I
>>> picked up a bunch of remainders to throw at friends. I expect the IV
>>> movie edition will have the same storefrontage.
>>> 
>>> On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 10:19 PM, matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Dear all,
>>>> 
>>>>  Having just returned from the states I thought I would offer up my view on
>>>> where TP stands in comparison to other writers from his cohort e.g. W. Gass,
>>>> J, Barthes or R. Coover.
>>>> 
>>>>  I was in Illinois over the holidays and when I could I went to bookstores,
>>>> looking into a couple of used bookstores and 3 different Barnes & Noble
>>>> locations from Southern Illinois to Chicago. Now, I know it's a small sample
>>>> and hardly scientific but the conclusion was clear: TP is on the shelves and
>>>> the others are not generally present. Whatsmore, I noticed that IV has come
>>>> out in a movie paperback with Joaquin's face on the cover. It seems to me
>>>> that he is very much out in front of the pack.
>>>> 
>>>>   (In one B&N outside Champaign-Urbana, I saw Luc Herman and Steven
>>>> Weisenburger's "GR, Domination and Freedom"! Not many TP scholars can that.)
>>>> 
>>>>  It would be interesting to see if other folks noticed something similar, I
>>>> expect there could be some regional differences. (Maybe more John Barthes in
>>>> Marlyland stores?)
>>>> 
>>>> ciao
>>>> otis
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>> 
> 

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