About not REALLY caring whether TRP got the Nobel. I spoke too soon.

[Allan Balliett]

Right you are!

-Allan in WV, where we are still waiting for Mark Kohut to shovel us out

On Sun, Jan 24, 2016 at 12:06 PM, Johnny Marr <marrja at gmail.com> wrote:

> TRP doesn't need to win the Nobel for us to appreciate him more. It would
> broaden his readership, so great for his bank balance (hopefully he's
> living comfortably enough, the extra sales would provide a nest egg for his
> family as well as ensure comfortable winter years). I think he's already
> well known enough that anyone likely to love him will venture upon him at
> some stage, but the extra exposure wouldn't hurt.
>
>  It would be great for him to win, although we'd face an increase in glib
> dismissals from an unsympathetic readership who view him as a chore or as
> markedly inferior to Roth, McCarthy et al. But the iconoclast within most
> TRP readers might welcome his exclusion from such a stuffy self-appointed
> museum of literary good taste.
>
> On Sunday, January 24, 2016, Steven Koteff <steviekoteff at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I was just reading in (should I duck?) THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES
>> about how the wisest angle actually resembles cruel indifference to people
>> who are not so privileged/burdened. Because it takes such a broader view of
>> events and accepts so much more tragedy as a given (inherent vice, so
>> forth). I'm mostly just playing devil's ad. I play both these parts
>> internally, so if you're gonna play one externally, I'll play the other.
>>
>> I want to think his work will be with us as long as--and in whatever
>> form--we need it to, and I don't see that need lessening in the near
>> future.
>>
>> On Jan 24, 2016, at 10:03 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Love the last line.....so we are as ambivalent as one of Pynchon's
>> ambiguous concepts?
>> One belief larger than any Academy I have is the belief in History's
>> Literary judgments ...eventually.
>>
>> There is a wonderful essay in harper's or The Atlantic about how
>> Shakespeare's rep grew over 400 years.
>> I want to believe that THAT will continue and that it will apply to
>> Pynchon.
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 24, 2016 at 10:41 AM, Steven Koteff <steviekoteff at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I don't disagree on a fundamental level though at the same time I'm just
>>> as suspicious of that feeling. It's not that different from, say, someone
>>> considered more strictly a religious prophet: if you believe that someone
>>> is exposing/creating something true of and life affirming in the
>>> world...don't you want them to get as much attention as possible? If it's
>>> really something you believe in? I always think about how, if I belonged to
>>> a church and really believed in it, it would seem selfish, short-sighted,
>>> and negligent not to want everybody else to get saved. But then of course
>>> it only makes sense for YOUR True Prophet--when anybody else tries to
>>> thrust one on you, it seems evil. But then an awareness of this--and the
>>> suspicion of 1's own certainty--seems to be one of the uniquest and wisest
>>> aspects of the Pynchster. I don't know. But then maybe good needs
>>> proselytizers as much as evil does. Needs more consideration. I think for
>>> the near future any extra attention the world pays to TRP's work yields
>>> solid RoI. But I'm cautious about that belief's ability to move me to have
>>> a strong or proactive opinion about the somewhat arbitrary decisions of a
>>> board of powerful people on another continent.
>>>
>>> Plus, I dunno, after just spending seven years in--in some ways--the
>>> beating heart of The Academy (which I know is not the same as the Nobel
>>> committee) I gotta say I have slightly more romantic ideas of how TRP's
>>> stuff is best and most potently spread. Maybe, like any exchange of love or
>>> positive energy, it is best spread from one person to another, with great
>>> urgency. Maybe it is more meant for smuggling than crowning.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Jan 24, 2016, at 4:28 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> But I think I really do. Seeing how prizes create readers and big prizes
>>> create canons faster,
>>> I wrote this recently to non-Plist industry friends when I sent them
>>> Tore's piece for Engdahl and the Nobel
>>> words.
>>>
>>>
>>> _____________________________________________________________________________
>>> Have you browsed in a macro way in the fiction section of any library
>>> lately? . With your general knowledge of most of the writers who have been
>>> published to acclaim since you started reading? Everywhere, any country,
>>> even America, you will notice how libraries buy, maybe overbuy and
>>> keep---teachers choose them for study-- the Nobel winners much more in
>>> stock vs so many others from any country.
>>>
>>>
>>
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