P: Something I, genuinely, don't get.

[Paul Mackin]

Pynchon just hasn't settled in yet.  Wait till he's been dead about twenty
years. Then we'll see.

On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 7:01 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Janeites steadily read and reread Austen's works and talk about them. This
> is a special kind of cult-like aspect of the great Jane. I know a couple
> and they say "without guile", they notice something new every read. Some
> little things re characterization, say, her profound insight into simple
> human nature for example
> a human nature we all share; some bigger things--the play within the story
> in *Mansfield Park*; the ethical choices and their results worked out over
> half-a lifetime in the history
> of the characters in* Persuasion; *the 'mannered hatred' between so many in
> all the novels.
>
> Some Proustians endlessly reread that genius, since his insights are as
> good as endless in our pendant world.
>
> Ron Rosenbaum said that the two writers--the only two--he could endlessly
> reread are Shakespeare and Nabokov. He seems to literally mean, unlike
> Janeites and Proustians, that
> he can't ever quite "get" them totally. (Janeites and Proustians get their
> writer; it is a matter of feeling more and seeing with more perspective or
> changing perspective. And, of course, this
> way of rereading applies to many another genius, who is richer on the page
> than we can 'remember'.)   (I engaged with him online re Pynchon and he
> said, he repeats himself, meaning thematically
> and by going on sometimes too long for his themes, I inferred. I think he
> is wrong, of course but we know (one of) my many faults).
>
> What I genuinely don't get here on the Plist; I know there are thousands of
> other great and simply good and interesting books to read, I try to read
> some of them too. I know we all have full lives
> to lead, some working hard---"it's about Work", as Alice W is always
> saying--others being 'creative' and alive and all.
>
> But why aren't we all simply reading, even just ten pages a day, (which is
> how I read Proust while busier than Satan), one of Pynchon's works? One
> that isn't---or it could easily still be--Gravity's Rainbow?
> Words, lines, scenes stick with me anew during my quotidian days. Like my
> grandson learning new 'popcorn words' as they call them, some stick with me
> anew. My earlier reading perceptions get
> relived, renewed or (usu) slightly changed and reunderstood.
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>