I was gonna 'research' this more before

[Paul Mackin]

Didn't Jules Siegel say in the PB article something to the effect that
Pynchon was only interested in knowing enough about a subject to allow him
to appropriate it to his own purposes? I may be overstretching my memory.







On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 10:55 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Not coincidentally, I was just thinking of the uses of Hamlet in Ulysses
> and AtD...
>
> On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 10:33 AM, matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> No doubt the relations between agents and institutions is central to
>> understanding the symbolic exchanges that occur across the social spectrum
>> (I would say that living in M. Beach during the Watts riots was at least as
>> important as knowing Kirk Sales who was then working as Editor at NYT - BR
>> or Magazine, can't remember). I would add that that sytem of relations also
>> includes the relations of writers (fledgling or otherwise) to other writers
>> in the field, past or present.
>>
>> I might add that P's review of Love in the Time of Cholera seems to
>> extend his relationship with latin America and its writers. Bear in mind
>> not just the Austin letters mention of Borges, but the translation of
>> Cortázar's Axolotl.
>>
>> Moreover, we may have a large sample size (in which the author A mentions
>> the author/writer /thinker Z repeatedly) but omits a work that was clearly
>> important (consider Joyce's use of Manuels of Catholic Philosophy). Of
>> course then it's a question of what they do with it. After all, Joyce's use
>> of Vico is no more akin to a historian's use of Vico than is Pynchon's use
>> of Weber.
>>
>> ciao
>> mc
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 3:39 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I hope I give direct testimony due weight, but my caution was prompted
>>> by Mark's "Why NEVER a mention of a couple we know were YUGE
>>> [influences]?... Just no reason nor opportunity to?"
>>>
>>> Authors who write lots of book reviews, essays, introductions -- who
>>> lecture and sit on PEN panels and talk with Melvyn Bragg or Charlie Rose
>>> and authorize literary biographers-- provide a large sample, which supports
>>> high confidence in saying "yes, Author A *did* read and return to and talk
>>> frequently about Influencer Z over the years."  The Pynchon sample is, by
>>> comparison, so small that I'd expect chance and happenstance to play a
>>> larger role: living in Manhattan Beach during the Watts riot, a request
>>> from his agent for a jacket blurb, a connection to the NYTBR when Love in
>>> the Time of Cholera came out. That's all.
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 7:10 AM, matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Good morning sir and Happy new Year,
>>>>
>>>> We should be more than wary of inferences where there is little proof
>>>> (e.g., name dropping Deleuze and Guttari in VL doesn't make me think that
>>>> he has read them or provides the reference as a way to 'read' the book).
>>>>
>>>>  But surely you accept at face value the mention he gives to Kerouac's
>>>> OTR? I find the SL intro very telling in terms of what writers informed
>>>> him, when taken along side the letters in the Austin Collection it is
>>>> rather informative. (The list of writers in the Ford Foundation application
>>>> is framed in a manner that makes it seem he is striking a bit of a pose.)
>>>>
>>>> Direct testimony has a weight all its own to put next to the sample and
>>>> the data obtained.  Don't you think?
>>>>
>>>> mc otis
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 12:03 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ​Insufficient data, insufficient sample size. P has revealed so little
>>>>> about influences and sources (compared to the scope of the oeuvre) that I'm
>>>>>
>>>>> (1) wary of inferences that those ​
>>>>> ​he does acknowledge are especially canonical for him, and
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> (2) very wary of inferences from what he *doesn't* say.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
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