A sort of thesis

Sun Jan 17 02:58:55 CST 2016

Abe Kobo Woman of the Dunes? Oe Kenzaburo? Actually so much great, small
Japanese work. Good call.
On 16 Jan 2016 23:44, "John Bailey" <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>
> >
>
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