AtD Wiki

[Smoke Teff]

I figured people here contribute/d to it. And that some/many might share
the sentiment I kind of hoped you would have and publicly voice, Mark.

My inclination is to basically agree with you and enjoy whatever
wholesomely anarchistic spaces we can get. And I really don't like to
complain. I deleted an earlier draft of the complaint because it didn't sit
well with me.

But.

As someone to whom Pynchon's work is personally important, the form of the
wiki was getting persistently frustrating for a few reasons.

-I'm always trying to get people I'm close to to read Pynchon. It is
personally important to me, as is his work. For many of them, sadly,
overall difficulty and density are a barrier to Pynchon's genius that isn't
insurmountable but seems likely to not really get surmounted, in the end.
Just the way it goes.
-For still others who do end up reading him (self included here), a lot of
what seem to be the richest and most singular (almost want to say
important) parts of his work are still really difficult to access alone. On
first (usually only for non-devotees) or any read.
-In my particular reading experience, some of the annotations in that place
have been an invaluable resource.
-I'm always thinking about not just how to get people I know to read
Pynchon but how to access.
-Some of the people I've turned on to Pynchon to some degree or another
have found the annotations a resource that is sometimes invaluable and
sometimes confounding.
-When confounding, when it seems to be more about Pynchon fans' selves than
Pynchon's work, it feels like a waste of time, or like the valuable stuff
is watered down.
-The investment of time (not to mention focus) is already one of the
notablest barriers to Pynchon's work, I think.
-The lovingly anarchistic stuff *is* great but can tend to either the weird
nitpicky infighting or to the circle jerk, both of which--in basically all
fields, I think the learning scientists might tell us--are huge barriers
and disincentives to novices joining a 'discourse (community)'.

I'm aware that most of these points can/do cut the other way or have
obvious Pynchonian counterperspectives. Pynchon shouldn't be easy, or fast.
Should not be *efficient *or mechanistic or inhuman. Pynchonia should not
be tyrannical, a land of only voice (even if it's his). Should not focus to
the point of repressing or eliminating--the work includes all things, and
so should the community.

I guess because I wasn't around for the making of the wiki, I just
naturally feel like the plist is a nice inclusive communal anarchistic
space. The wiki I think of more as a reference.

Maybe it's a mistake of singularity and exclusion on my part. I guess I'm
taking the less sexy stance here. I just want something that's ultimately
going to *increase *readerly communion with Pynchon and so the universe. I
wonder if the wiki in its current form does that. Or if it's now more a
kind of reliquary for other things. But then what's a novel but a
reliquary, after all.

In the end: whatever.

On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 1:57 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> No time for a longer post--I've bloviated in the archives on it---but the
> ATD wiki is the perfect online symbolic reenactment of the ideal of sharing
> t-shirts from a pile --so offhandedly but brilliantly used by TRP as
> wholesome anarchy in a too-possessive world.
>
> I LOVE every twist and turn and stupidity ( including all my own) and
> speculation and insight in it.
> That's reading in a democratic way....as we know ANYONE can " improve" it
> if they think they can and the more the more Pynchonian.
>
> I could end with an aggressive aphorism about that wiki but.....
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Apr 28, 2017, at 1:00 AM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Sorry to e symbolic form of  at y'all but I'm reading *AtD *at the
> moment, along with the annotations on the *AtD *wiki...
>
> About 50% of the material really shouldn't be there. Somehow it's largely
> a forum to masturbatorily (yet anonymously, which seems contradictory
> somehow) 1) demonstrate close reading that's shallow or reckless or both,
> or 2) wax rhapsodic and editorial about how much the annotater likes the
> novel/ist (e.g. 'This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it
> sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light — and sadness.)
>
> And an uncomfortable percentage of the more informative annotations are
> also largely a waste of time to read.
>
> Anybody else find this? I used the annotations for *GR, M&D*, *IV, BE...*seem
> to remember them mostly being much better than this.
>
>
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