A sort of thesis

[Ian Livingston]

I'd have to throw in Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, but then I'm easily
impressed. I also think Will and Ariel Durant's The Story of Civilization
is a massively great historical fiction, driven by a profound Marxist /
humanist vision of the sublime.

On Sat, Jan 16, 2016 at 11:53 AM, Matthew Taylor <
matthew.taylor923 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Since *The Magic Mountain* and *Doctor Faustus* are in the discussion,
> I'd add *Joseph and His Brothers*. There is so much about myth and
> history, restlessness and wandering, blessings and curses, mediators
> between heaven and earth, etc etc. In addition to all of its thematic
> weight, it also doesn't shy away from many of the more "conventional
> pleasures" associated with reading.
>
> As far as shorter books, I remember being floored by Djuna Barnes'
> *Nightwood* when I read it years ago. As I recall, she had a sort of
> friendship and certainly a mutual artistic respect with our pal Joyce.
>
> On Sat, Jan 16, 2016 at 11:34 AM, Jemmy Bloocher <jbloocher at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I've yet to read Finnegan's Wake, even a little. If it truly is greater
>> than Ulysses then I must stop procrastinating over it as Ulysses was a
>> life-changer in so many ways.
>>
>> I think my great list would have to include Maturin's Melmoth the
>> Wanderer. (how does one do italics on Gmail and smartphone?!) It's some
>> years since I read it, but it stays with me.
>> I went through a couple of years where I read only the writers I'd heard
>> of as being great, and Charles Robert Maturin was one, along with the other
>> gothic 'names'.
>> I'm putting my head on the block, but I absolutely put Gene Wolfe, though
>> particularly the Solar Cycle, on my list of greats.
>> On 16 Jan 2016 18:39, "Steven Koteff" <steviekoteff at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Minorly relevant thing.
>>>
>>> Just happened to be rereading the foreword to *Lolita *(the John Ray,
>>> Jr., Ph.D. part). He says: "[...]a great work of art is of course always
>>> original, and thus by its very nature should come as a more or less
>>> shocking surprise."
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Jan 16, 2016 at 11:50 AM, Steven Koteff <steviekoteff at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Good side discussion, then, might be: What are books you consider Great
>>>> despite, or maybe because of, being very small? (As if there aren't enough
>>>> short stories.)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Jan 16, 2016 at 11:47 AM, Steven Koteff <steviekoteff at gmail.com
>>>> > wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Just reading over that. Should've edited that a lot. Sorry guys. Wrote
>>>>> it on a cell phone while walking around Wicker Park. I mean to say, by the
>>>>> way, I entertain the idea *Finnegans Wake *is Greater than *Ulysses*.
>>>>>
>>>>> I know a lot of people, by the way, who value nothing in the world
>>>>> above literature, and whose stomachs churn at discussions of Greatness that
>>>>> involve comparisons, hierarchies, etc.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sat, Jan 16, 2016 at 11:40 AM, Steven Koteff <
>>>>> steviekoteff at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I think there are probably very reasonable reasons why the size and
>>>>>> scope of a novel--if they don't dictate real vitality and life affirmation
>>>>>> and craft and greatness--might correlate with some like Greatness Frequency
>>>>>> Index. A billion caveats, most of which you can easily imagine and which I
>>>>>> grant.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I started becoming a Pynchon devotee when I was in college. He was a
>>>>>> gradual progression on a reading arc of mine that lent me to ever (you
>>>>>> might call)excessive/(I might call)expansive novels. Preceding Pynchon for
>>>>>> me were, like, DFW (I am one of the people around here who thinks Infinite
>>>>>> Jest is Great but I haven't read it in like five years so who knows; and
>>>>>> I'd consider adding Pale King even in its published form, with its phantom
>>>>>> bits, to the list, like The Castle), Tolstoy (Karenina also big and Great),
>>>>>> Joyce (I have read only bits of it Mark but I at least entertain the idea
>>>>>> that it's Greater than Ulysses even if I don't necessarily agree; a smart
>>>>>> reader of Ulysses can reasonably read it smoothly enough or submit to it
>>>>>> enough that there is active real-time investment in the story and
>>>>>> characters that offers that magical/primitive pleasure of
>>>>>> self-transcendence by caring about an unreal world, to the point that you
>>>>>> forget you exist in a different one, or exist at all; I have read a few
>>>>>> bits of Finnegans Wake but not enough to know if that can be experienced in
>>>>>> FW; and if that pleasure is sacrificed, I'm not saying it can't be made up
>>>>>> for in the other Great things created by the same extremer density of FW
>>>>>> that allows for its other/Greater qualities; just that I haven't read
>>>>>> enough of FW to know if that's the case; fuck Ulysses is so good).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I then went to grad school to study fiction writing at a program that
>>>>>> was basically three years of living in an arts colony that consisted of a
>>>>>> lot of very close but personally and interpersonally tumultuous people who
>>>>>> spent abnormal amounts of time discussing the art and practice of crafting
>>>>>> the perfect story. Often on a level that was so elemental, conceptual,
>>>>>> informed, sophisticated, and yet concerned with primality, that you
>>>>>> could've read it as spiritual. And from that perspective, the scope of
>>>>>> something like GR, it's wildness, excesses (on the level of language, size,
>>>>>> plot, etc.) are not only rebellious but also deeply connected to the
>>>>>> spirit/uality/philosophy/life-affirmativeness (as you might call it) of the
>>>>>> book that also makes it Great, I think. To the extent that the size and
>>>>>> scope are actually a part of the spirit and the Greatness. Now, I don't
>>>>>> think a book has to have a similar size and Scope to be Great. I think
>>>>>> what's more true is that the size and scope be perfectly attuned to the
>>>>>> particular requirements of the perspective the book is taking. Maybe when
>>>>>> spirit, craft, talent, and vision all combine to create something Great, it
>>>>>> even slightly more often requires a book huge in size.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> > On Jan 16, 2016, at 9:42 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > As I went on to say, size and scope matters in making my case...
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > yeah, just a so what discussion to have.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > A feeling about Ambition of theme re all.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> >> On Sat, Jan 16, 2016 at 10:35 AM, john bove <malignd at gmx.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> >> In what way is Finnegans Wake greater than Ulysses or ATD than
>>>>>> GR?  My
>>>>>> >> answer would be in no ways.
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> I prefer Faustus to Magic Mountain and Dog Years to Tin Drum.  Bt
>>>>>> so what?
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> And have you actually "read" Finnegans Wake?  NOt doubting, only
>>>>>> curious.
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2016 at 6:13 AM
>>>>>> >> From: "Mark Kohut" <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>>>>> >> To: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>>>>> >> Subject: A sort of thesis
>>>>>> >> There are a few "big" books that have the status
>>>>>> >> of great novels that all cluster in my head in the same
>>>>>> >> place.
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> Moby Dick, Ulysses, The Magic Mountain, The Man Without
>>>>>> >> Qualities, The Tin Drum, The Golden Notebook, Gravity's
>>>>>> >> Rainbow, Portrait of a Lady, Middlemarch, Cairo Trilogy, Radetzky
>>>>>> March
>>>>>> >> and like that.
>>>>>> >> Swap out or add others, we can do.
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> Proust in seven volumes is in a class by itself because of length.
>>>>>> >> (Some say first three volumes equivalent to the above bracketing?)
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> But I think the two most ambitious novels in English, perhaps, the
>>>>>> only ones
>>>>>> >> I can think of this morning, that might be 'great' in even larger
>>>>>> ways
>>>>>> >> than the above
>>>>>> >> are Finnegan's Wake and Against the Day.
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> Argue with me. Find others?
>>>>>> >> -
>>>>>> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>>>>> >> - Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>>>>> > -
>>>>>> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>
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