Liss/stepvr but also Molly Hite

[Mark Kohut]

Hooper: "For me, that aspect will always be secondary, after the story,
because while socio-political stuff embedded in a good tale might make some
valid points, fiction embedded in a socio-political tract proves nothing
(it’s made up!)"

Perhaps the excluded middle applies. That is, a good political novel, they
are fewer than good novels in general, maybe, is one in which the embodied
ideas are as
integrally bound as are the qualities of the characters and setting, etc.

The world that is the case for a novelist is full of embodied "ideas'. Such
'socio-politcal' stuff is as real as character should be, no? America is a
nation founded on
"ideas', revolutionary ones for the times, for history.

I did a self-study class, sorta like a light senior thesis--my school did
not have that thing--on the political novel as the sixties ended. Besides
the novels I read, I read Irving Howe's
The Political Novel, from which I hope I have distilled decently. Malraux,
Silone, others are full of real-enough but embodied characters and ideas.
If not, they are not good work.

Pynchon's IS good work.



On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 4:31 AM peterthooper at juno.com <peterthooper at juno.com>
wrote:

>
> ---------- Original Message ----------
> From: Thomas Eckhardt <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de>
>
> Am 19.04.2020 um 06:22 schrieb peterthooper at juno.com:
>
> > It’s a well-written good story with, yes, some background
> political/social elements, but there’s always some of that sh*t about,
> bound to appear in any perceptive author’s story.
>
> You couldn't be more wrong.
>
> - it’s not like i didn’t try. (-;
>
> How about this:
>
> For me, that aspect will always be secondary, after the story, because
> while socio-political stuff embedded in a good tale might make some valid
> points, fiction embedded in a socio-political tract proves nothing (it’s
> made up!)
>
> Maybe tertiary, after the prose, because that’s obviously super-important
>
> or no - quaternary, after the characters, because they engage the emotions
> & imagination
>
> or pentateuchly, after the scenery. Among an author’s Rasselas-like
> qualities, shouldn’t we prize that more highly than arguing for a viewpoint
> in the shifting political arena in which an author is wont to fare as
> Christian among lions and ripped Russell-Crowe-lookin’ dudes?
>
> I want a story with a riveting plot, tasty prose, characters to love and
> hate and love to hate and learn to forgive or see differently than before,
> and not necessarily a constant barrage of images but at least sometimes
> some places you can picture.
>
> It may be other things to other people, but that’s what VL is for me.
>
>
>
>
>  As Salman Rushdie says, VL is a major
> political novel.
>
>
> https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-vineland.html
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>