Moonglow by Michael Chabon

Wed Jul 26 18:39:28 CDT 2017

Just put a hold on this at the library. Any other TRP-adjacent authors I
should know about?

On Wed, Jul 26, 2017 at 5:57 PM Becky Lindroos <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
wrote:

>
> On Jul 24, 2017, at 9:30 AM, Daniel Mattingly <mattinglydf at googlemail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >  reckoning with his two impulses of stylistic maximalism and
> content-heavy 'fullness' for lack of a better way of explaining it, on the
> one side, and a sense of appreciation of smaller scale, intimate writing on
> the other side.
>
> Finally finished yesterday and read the posts:
>
>  I totally see this although I’d say it was a juggling of the two impulses
> rather than a reckoning of them -  Pynchon’s got the juggling down pat with
> equally weighted sides.   Chabon, otoh,  seems to have a weight problem
> with the "stylistic maximalism” outweighing the “content-heavy fullness”
> so the whole effect is a bit off balance.  And Chabon’s content, in this
> book anyway,  is nowhere near as heavy or full as Pynchon’s - at all.  (I
> think it was better in Kavalier and Clay.)
>
> Thoroughly enjoyed your comment re the "anxiety of influence" but I don’t
> think Chabon will ever be Pynchon - I don’t think he expects to be.  Still
> - it has to be there …
>
>  Becky
> https://beckylindroos.wordpress.com
>
> > On Jul 24, 2017, at 9:30 AM, Daniel Mattingly <
> mattinglydf at googlemail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I really like Chabon's stuff, and was really looking forward to it after
> Telegraph Avenue. (Which it seems that a lot of people didn't like because
> of meandering jazzy prose riffage, plotting excess and a relatively smaller
> scope than K&C or Yiddish Policement's Union). In retrospect, some of the
> criticisms of the excesses of T.A. have some credence, although I still
> enjoy its dazzling runs of language, as well as the 'deep history' in the
> margins of the main story, and the multitude of fine details that are woven
> into the fabric of the narrative. I had a feeling, though, that Chabon
> could possibly respond to the claims of bagginess by attempting to ''scale
> down' a bit for his next book, although thankfully this wasn't quite the
> case...
> >
> > Moonglow took a while to warm to, for me, but after I adjusted to the
> meta-memoir form, I did definitely enjoy it. The Pynchonian riffs didn't
> come as a big surprise, to me, after reading Telegraph Avenue, and to a
> lesser extent some of his earlier stuff (particularly Wonder Boys), and a
> few of his essays about literature in Maps and Legends. Purists may say
> that he's no Pynchon, but I think that his channeling of Pynchonian
> language etc. definitely comes from a place of sincere appreciation, rather
> than opportunism or cynicism.
> >
> > Without a doubt, I feel that Chabon is definitely one of the premier
> stylists and conjurer of  striking phrases and ideas out there, in terms of
> his generation of American writers who came of age heavily influenced by
> Pynchon, DeLillo, et al. As far as whether Chabon really 'needed' to riff
> on Master P. or not, my feelings are that he's having something of a
> reckoning with his two impulses of stylistic maximalism and content-heavy
> 'fullness' for lack of a better way of explaining it, on the one side, and
> a sense of appreciation of smaller scale, intimate writing on the other
> side. If he started a heavily indebted to the Program writing method, and
> broadened his reach to redeem 'lesser' literary forms and styles later,
> he's now in the process of reconciling both, while trying to avoid
> portentousness or extreme naval gazing.
> >
> > Chabon may not be considered as much of a traditionally literary
> heavyweight as some of his peers, but I doubt he'll ever write a novel that
> will settle for creatively or stylistically 'treading water'. I'll always
> look forward to seeing what he comes up with next, more so than the likes
> of Franzen or Eugenides, for example.
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 24, 2017 at 3:23 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > By me it's lesser Chabon (although that's still near the top of fiction
> in general). The working out of "what did Mom & Dad *really* do in the
> war," its playing out in their postwar  lives and in the narrator's
> _bildung_, is very very good -- and BTW adds even more depth to Chabon's
> smart reading of _Bleeding Edge_ as "what we do and don't tell the
> children."
> >
> >
> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/11/07/thomas-pynchon-crying-september-11/
> >
> > But the V2 - von Braun - space race & modern Florida threads seemed to
> me neither as good in themselves nor productively tied to the story above
> -- almost another book.
> >
> > In GR, Pynchon ties V2 and death camps together by embedding them and
> the Mittelwerk, the Oven myth/metaphor, the madnesses of Blicero and the
> Hereros, etc, within one grand critique of everything since Eden. But
> without that infrastructure and surround, the connection between the V2 and
> the book's genealogy of suffering and emotional scarring doesn't work for
> me. No doubt that owes something to my own, maybe idiosyncratic view that
> (1) the V2 mattered for what it foreshadowed in the 1950s and 1960s, not as
> a uniquely evil or terrible weapon in 1944-45, and (2) that the whole "von
> Braun as crypto-Nazi corrupter in the postwar US, if only They hadn't
> hidden the truth from us" narrative is a morally vacuous evasion.
> >
> > Moonglow is definitely worth reading, definitely a hard-won and not
> unworthy homage to what Chabon has learned from P -- but also a case study
> in the anxiety of influence
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 24, 2017 at 9:10 AM, Becky Lindroos <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
> wrote:
> > Who else has read Moonglow by Michael Chabon?   What did you think?
> >
> > I’m about 2/3 through and have mixed feelings.   It’s obviously an
> homage to TRP (and I know he has put mention of TRP in many of his books)
> -  what else?   In some way that homage kind of spoils it for me.  I’m not
> sure how to say it.
> >
> > I love Pynchon  - (YES!)  and I've really very much enjoyed Chabon’s
> works,  especially Kavalier and Clay and the Yiddish Policeman’s Union.
>  Chabon is already great.  It feels like he really didn’t need to do this.
> >
> > I understand there’s a lot more to Moonglow than the V2 rocket scenes
> (etc.)  and that part is pretty good - inventive, funny and original in its
> own way.  The structure of the book is amazing and Chabon’s sense of humor
> shines through (hilarious in places).    I’m glad Chabon wrote it and I’m
> glad I read it but …. there are these mixed feelings I don’t know what from.
> >
> > Becky
> > https://beckylindroos.wordpress.com
> >
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> >
> >
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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