Fwd: Pynchon, Roth

[Mark Kohut]

"Fay Weldon was kinder in *The New York Times Book Review, *
noting that *Deception *had been published the same week as
Thomas Pynchon's more sprawling *Vineland---[*and praised in
that rag by Salman Rushdie, we remember, whom Roth greatly
respected as a writer and whom he entertained early at his NY place
during the fatwa against him, who came with his then-wife--Salman said
they both knew the marriage was over before the fatwa--and about six
secret service agents] ---and that she was as happy to find herself "as
exhilarated
by one as by the other."..."Between *Vineland *and the neat-and-steely
*Deception," *she wrote,
"range the works of all other writers in the English language".----Bailey's
Roth p 531

It takes a smart good female writer to see and say that. Along with Harold
Bloom (although not for
these two books, I don't believe). But/and she did ding Philip for his
"old-fashioned view of women".