Re: Pynchon’s Layers Statement

[Mark Kohut]

Too bad Joe won't read my memory confirmation of his memory---and Morris's
too, I guess. I also remember that metaphor being
used by Thomas P. I believe it was in a letter (probably to his editor,
either Faith or Cork, early in his career, of course. Or a friend
like Kirkpatrick). I believe I read it in one of the good books on his
work, and him. An early one, obviously, which I did not read until
my deep dive into TRP after *Against the Day* was published.

It has stuck with me but my kinda distinction (maybe without a difference)
with Joseph certainly and Morris dunno-fer-sure is to add
that to me it seems like he, as an artist, simple sees, feels and writes
(thinkingly) this way naturally now.....It is not like he works in
different
levels......they all work in him........I offer thinking of the title
change from Mindless Pleasures to Gravity's Rainbow as one example......MP
has
some nice ambiguities in references......but you got your cosmos thing in
Gravity; your common everyday meaning; you've got human seriousness
and human meaning--gravitas. I don't need to do Rainbow, right? except to
comment on what kind of rainbow does a rocket bring, mean and more ambiguity
flows.....

Think of Shakey and Measure for Measure as one like it from that Bard     I
offer you all to read some of Booth on Shakespeare's sonnets, those
'simple'
poems with simple words--few literary allusions, etc---that have root
levels, overt levels and community meaning levels all at once, if that
works as an analogy
....and the plays are more.





On Mon, Dec 13, 2021 at 9:41 AM Allen Ruch <quail at shipwrecklibrary.com>
wrote:

> I was wondering about Joe’s reference myself. I don’t recall Pynchon
> making that remark, yet it did ring a distant bell: maybe someone else said
> it about him, or maybe Pynchon said it in a review of another’s writing?
>
> Larry and I gathered the vast majority of Pynchon’s uncollected writing
> here:
>
> http://shipwrecklibrary.com/the-modern-word/pynchon/sl-essays/
>
> Anyway, I just searched all these pieces of “uncollected” writing for
> these terms: “medic” “text,” “layer,” “transparent” and “overlap.” I didn’t
> find anything. Maybe it was from the introduction to “Slow Learner?” I
> haven’t read that in a while.
>
> —Quail
>
> PS: My own memory is so unreliable that to this day I *insist* Grimace,
> the McDonald’s mascot, had FOUR arms when I was a kid. Everyone thinks I’m
> crazy, but one day I’ll find that commercial on YouTube…
>
> From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
> Date: Sunday, December 12, 2021 at 6:34 PM
> To: Allen Ruch <quail at shipwrecklibrary.com>, Joseph Tracy <
> brook7 at sover.net>, The Whole Sick Crew <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Subject: Pynchon’s Layers Statement
>
> Skimming the interaction between Joe & Allen, I see Joe refer to a
> statement by Pynchon about his layers of writing:
>
> Joe:  “As you know, because the story, I’m fairly certain, came from your
> [Quail’s] and web page, Pynchon once compared his writing to one of those
> medical texts with overlappable transparent layers.”
>
>
> Then Joe lays out a 3 layer structure in Pynchon’s writing.  This caught
> my attention because just this week a guy  in the Reddit group ATD read (in
> which I’m participating) proposed his own 3 layer structure that seems
> nearly identical to what Joe proposed.  So this 3 layer idea seems to be
> floating around the internet now, and I’m curious about where it came from,
> and what Pynchon said about his own use of layers in his writing.
>
>
> So, Big Quail, can you send a link, or just send the whole thing to this
> list?  I’m sorta shocked that I’d never seen it in all my years reading
> Pynchon. Clearly I didn’t dig through the Spermatikos Logos pages deep
> enough back in the day.
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>