BtZ42: on the road to Greenwich

[Mark Kohut]

The only other thing I know is when I, once quite stupidly---not smartly as
you are---
seemed to question whether Pynchon had read Naked Lunch (and others of
his), Jochen
simply 'said' (I paraphrase), "C'mon". Jochen implied: He read EVERY
important aesthetically innovative work of his time, esp
as he spoke of the breakthru writing of such as On The Road.
Perhaps he did not read early Bellow or James Gould Cozzens or Mary
McCarthy or Flannery O'Connor or early Updike, or others both highly
praised and famous, [he was reading Chandler and MacDonald and other
mystery writers so] just maybe,
but it seems very likely re Burroughs as also Gaddis (no direct knowledge
there either) as maybe early Purdy [The Nephew]
as well as Mailer, various clues,  as well as who knows who else.

On Sat, Mar 26, 2016 at 6:31 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:

>
> The assumption is there for a long time. On the back cover of the very
> first book in Germany about Pynchon --- Heinz Ickstadt (ed.): "Ordnung und
> Entropie. Zum Romanwerk von Thomas Pynchon" from 1981 ---, which got
> published when the German edition of GR ("Die Enden der Parabel") appeared,
> it says: "Thomas Pynchon verbindet die obszöne Sprachphantasmagorie William
> Burroughs' mit der Musilschen Leidenschaft für die Mathematik des
> Unendlichen". This sentence was likely written by Ickstadt himself (in his
> essay on CoL49, pp. 104-125, here 121, it says again "Pynchon - dessen
> Fähigkeit, den mathematischen Umgang mit dem Unendlichen zu erschließen, an
> Musil denken lässt - ...", yes, in Vineland we even find an explicit Musil
> reference), whose introduction ("Einleitung", pp. 7-15) dates from June
> 1979. But I cannot remember having ever read something substantial on the
> issue. Nothing like, let's say, "Burroughs and Pynchon as satirists of Cold
> War America".
>
>
>
> On 26.03.2016 10:45, Mark Kohut wrote:
>
> Get this book in print▼
>
>    My library
>    <https://books.google.de/books?uid=114584440181414684107&source=gbs_lp_bookshelf_list>
>    My History
>    Books on Google Play <https://play.google.com/store/books>
>
> The English Penguin Books Restored text edition assumes--or knows?-- it
> influenced Pynchon.
> Naked Lunch: The Restored Text
> [image: Front Cover]
> William S Burroughs
> <https://www.google.de/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22William+S+Burroughs%22>
> Penguin Books Limited, Jan 29, 2015 - Fiction
> <https://www.google.de/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=subject:%22Fiction%22&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0>
>  - 224 pages
>
> <https://books.google.de/books?id=8r4cBAAAQBAJ&dq=adenoid++%22naked+lunch%22&sitesec=reviews>
> 1171 Reviews
> <https://books.google.de/books?id=8r4cBAAAQBAJ&dq=adenoid++%22naked+lunch%22&sitesec=reviews>
> A cultural landmark and the most shocking novel in the English language, *Naked
> Lunch* is an exhilarating ride into the darkest recesses of the human
> psyche. An unnerving tale of an addict unmoored in New York, Tangier, and
> ultimately a nightmarish wasteland known as Interzone, *Naked Lunch*'s
> formal innovation, formerly taboo subject matter, and tour de force
> execution has exerted its influence authors like Thomas Pynchon and J. G.
> Ballard; on the relationship of art and obscenity; and on the shape of
> music, film, and media in general.
>
> On Sat, Mar 26, 2016 at 5:35 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
> <lorentzen at hotmail.de>lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 25.03.2016 17:22, Monte Davis wrote:
>>
>> ... So... why an adenoid (i.e. a tonsil), rather than an appendix or
>> spleen or hypothalamus? Why human tissue at all, rather than some other
>> stand-in for Osmo's fears? Its slimy protoplasmic aspect led me on first
>> reading to think of SF movies:
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blob
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Master_X-7
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quatermass_II>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quatermass_II
>>
>> And its _sshhlop_ing of the troops is parodically close to a scene of the
>> Martian death ray in Wells' The War of the Worlds.
>>
>> All I got -- not much -- is a vague association of the "adenoidal" voice
>> with a nasal drawl allegedly common among the UK twits and toffs who might
>> have populated the Foreign Office in those days. Still around under new
>> management:
>>
>>
>> <http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/that-adenoidal-nasally-geek-voice>
>> http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/that-adenoidal-nasally-geek-voice
>>
>> And Gogol's Nose:
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nose_(Gogol_short_story)
>>
>>
>>
>> The word "adenoid" also appears in Naked Lunch:
>>
>>
>> https://books.google.de/books?id=8r4cBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT78&lpg=PT78&dq=adenoid++%22naked+lunch%22&source=bl&ots=YNC0HlpPxh&sig=BPDoowd0_TTYShFszA2npU8SneI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiowqr59t3LAhXC0RQKHYCtDwYQ6AEIIjAB#v=onepage&q=adenoid%20%20%22naked%20lunch%22&f=false
>>
>> In its more sarcastic passages, the sound of Gravity's Rainbow resembles
>> that of Burroughs' novel. And "Meeting of International Conference of
>> Technological Psychiatry" sounds like something Pynchon could have come up
>> with in part 4 of GR. Does anybody know for sure whether Pynchon actually
>> read Burroughs' novels and what he thinks about them?
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
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