A sort of thesis

Sat Jan 16 17:44:05 CST 2016

Pale Fire is great. I think a bunch of E. L. Doctorow is great, and
Ragtime is short. Kafka and Ishiguro. Reage's Story of O is definitely
Great and it's tiny.

Then there are short stories which can be Great but are almost a
different artform. I once spent a few months reading everything by
Carver and Cheever and while I think they're both Great it's at the
level of short story, and the fact that so many MFA program deify them
leads to novels that are really just overfed short stories.

I love Japanese art because it excels at making something Great while
keeping it miniature.

And yeah, my stomach kinda turns at the idea of Greatness but then
again, we're all adults here and we probably all think a few things
are just hands-down unarguably terrific.

On Sun, Jan 17, 2016 at 7:48 AM, Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>
>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l