Fwd: P: "Self-criticism..shouldn't work.. but it can"--and be as strange as Love,mebbe

[Mark Kohut]

I think I would argue that the digressions aren't. Really. Demands an
overarching perspective/essay.

On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 2:05 PM, Steven Koteff <steviekoteff at gmail.com>
wrote:

> There are occasional digressions which seem to serve no purpose aside
> from, well A) his constant impulse to explore every new avenue of attention
> and awareness but also B), giving us crucial and measured bits of wisdom,
> judgment, guidance.
>
> It's interesting that what makes him so expansive in his fiction makes him
> almost conservative in his non.
>
> On Feb 25, 2016, at 12:30 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> agree....some short stories must have complex plots.....my "all' is the
> usual overgeneralization mistake...
> Under the Rose's pretty complex, which may be why he compares it to a Le
> Carre novel.
>
> I think the SL intro is as crafted as his fiction.....and, I too, think
> about eh books he mentions vs all which
> he does NOT.
>
> This intro is shaped around 'what to reveal' I feel too.
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 11:47 AM, Steven Koteff <steviekoteff at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I've been thinking a lot about the Slow Learner intro. The book's release
>> had any number of personal/professional justifications, no doubt (which
>> Kachka speculates on in that Vulture thing). But TRP is/was not ignorant of
>> the degree to which he is ever pursued, not merely by predatory reporters
>> and so forth, but by people who view him as a source of honesty and wisdom
>> in these and all dark times. In the SL intro I think we see him coming to
>> terms with the fact that people are going to take everything he says and
>> publishes very seriously for at least probably the rest of his life.
>>
>> In light of that, I have been wondering to what extent that intro is a
>> precisely crafted piece of writing on his part. We know from the novels the
>> extent to which he can sustain a prose that is densely layered and encoded,
>> or at least where every word is multiply resonant and purposeful. The
>> intro, in contrast, seems straightforward and almost casual. But then it's
>> so aberrant in his career, and kind of warmly acknowledges his own
>> influence so much, that you'd have to think it is written with full
>> understanding of the degree to which some people would try to use it
>> as...evidence/justification/fatwa of...something.
>>
>> The intro is an interesting read if you go through it trying to ask
>> yourself to whom it is addressed. He seems to actually care a great deal
>> about what apprentice artists can learn from it. But also there is no doubt
>> it is for the fans.
>>
>> But how earnest and how careful/purposeful is he about, say, the books he
>> mentions? Can you imagine him writing the intro and thinking, okay, I will
>> grant them (you guys, us) an acknowledgement of x number of sources? Can
>> you imagine him deciding which sources to acknowledge and which not to? (On
>> the Road gets two plugs, and how many others get none? Although maybe by
>> this point, in this form, he isn't concerned with exhaustion or perfection.)
>>
>> You say, Mark: All short story writers, all critics of the form that I
>> know, believe 'complexity of plot" ruins stories
>>
>> I am not disputing that the writers and critics you favor say this. And I
>> do not dispute that the short story form is just not as well suited to
>> TRP's talents than novels.
>>
>> But I don't think a complex plot NECESSARILY ruins a short story.
>>
>> Maybe this is cheating, but I think plots can be complex in a lot of
>> ways. One is that short story plots can contain a lot of emotional
>> complexity for the characters. Okay, sure. (And here I'm using "complexity"
>> as both synonymous with and independent of "sophistication") Another is
>> that even simple or straightforward plots can (and in any story should)
>> engage with readerly expectations in complex ways. Short stories, in their
>> compression, manage the EKG of audience expectations as carefully as jokes.
>>
>> I don't really disagree with you, Mark. Though I think maybe Pynchon is
>> just being a bit glib there. It doesn't strike me as weird. Decades of
>> removal make the unique perspective of having yourself written something
>> even more complicated, I would guess. And I can understand how it'd be very
>> difficult to see the early work as having a life of its own. (Not least
>> because early work so seldom does.) But then I haven't reread the stories
>> from SL yet. Maybe what you say will resonate more with me once I do.
>>
>> > On Feb 25, 2016, at 7:06 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > We know and most do not believe in P's own harsh judgment of The Crying
>> of Lot 49.
>> >
>> > But, rereading Under the Rose and his words about it, leads to other
>> questions about
>> > his harsh self-judgment.
>> >
>> > He sez, in minimizing Under the Rose that readers have become
>> accustomed to Le Carre
>> > who 'has upped the ante" for the whole genre. Quote from TRP in 1984:
>> "Today we expect a complexity of plot and depth of character missing from
>> my effort here".  Well,...
>> >
>> > Does that strike any others of you as ...weird? Le Carre writes novels
>> ( i know of no stories
>> > and if there are, they are seldom read or considered, right?) which
>> give room for complexity
>> > of plot and depth of character.
>> >
>> > All short story writers, all critics of the form that I know, believe
>> 'complexity of plot" ruins stories. All the unspooling and therefore
>> contrived respooling, so to speak. And, if character is mostly revealed
>> > in fiction by responses within actions and scenes, then of course real
>> depth of character
>> > is unattainable. To reveal depth like a perfect snapshot is what many
>> of the best stories
>> > do. As I think someone said (setting up story vs novel as
>> snapshot--unity of effect--vs a
>> > novel, a movie)
>> >
>> > Then he says this story is, "happily, mostly chase scenes" "for which I
>> remain a dedicated
>> > sucker"....invoking the eternal Road Runner plot.
>> >
>> > Really, TRP? Did we reread the same story? Perhaps you are conflating
>> it with V, which
>> > this plot line of, with Stencil and all, can feel more like a long
>> chase scene. But here, I remember
>> > most that window spying scene, the conversations and interactions of
>> the characters, Bongo-Shaftsbury saying: "You screamed at the Chief".."You
>> said 'Go away and die'"
>> >
>>
>
>
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