SLPAD - modest to a fault

[Dee Kilroy]

P knows he doesn't have to justify anything.  He knows the book wasn't
particularly awkward or off-key in the greater body of work that he had
crowding his mind at the time of typing the introduction.  And I don't
think he's particularly embarrassed to earn money from a book; it's not as
if CoL49 constitutes much of a cash-grab or desperate ploy.  I'm sure he's
pretty happy it sold, sold well, and continues to sell based on both its
reputation as being slightly less obtuse, and shorter.

If I stack his library of output & sort it in the order of the
Chronological Concerns each volume represents, CoL49 is a chronicle of the
era that permanently changed Pynchon's life & mind.  He has a great many
reservations about the PERIOD the book is written about, and who he felt
himself to be in that time, i.e. Complicit in the crimes of the time &
place.  The paranoia was, and is, real, and I imagine if he's talked about
that book to anyone in his life lately, he's said that he was scared
shitless of what his world was becoming and rued his part in the
beshittedness of it all.  [/end speculation]

What P said in the SL intro is probably a set shpiel for any dinner guest
gauche enough to bring CoL49 up over pizza instead of asking "Puff, puff,
pass."  He's saying he doesn't want to get into it by giving it short
shrift.  He's not saying don't read it.  Quite the opposite.

On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 3:51 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> This may be crass but maybe he was pressured to publish for the money and
> this is how he justified it. Not that good pay for honest work is not
> totally fine. It is, but he was obviously putting out some serious caveats.
>
> I personally would rather take up the oft dismissed but IMO still quite
> powerful COL 49. This is where most P readers start but we might have
> something new to add if we were to get into it and treat each other
> respectfully. That said, lead on Michael, I hope it will be ok if I join in
> with all my thoroughly discussed flaws. I still think of text as neutral
> ground and hope it can be treated as such.
>
> > On Feb 16, 2023, at 3:24 AM, Michael Bailey <
> michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Note on pagination - I’m not going to worry much about it
> >
> >
> > Shorter quote:
> > “there are some mighty tiresome passages here, juvenile and delinquent
> too.
> > At the same time, my best hope is that, pretentious, goofy and
> > ill-considered as they get now and then, these stories will still be of
> use
> > with all their flaws intact, as illustrative of typical problems in
> > entry-level fiction, and cautionary about some practices which younger
> > writers might prefer to avoid.”
> >
> >
> > Basically, is this praising with loud damn or what?
> >
> > Also - positioning this as a “what not to do” guide to younger writers -
> > what kind of tactic is this for an introduction?
> >
> >
> > It’s like, ok - we’re leaving the flaws intact
> >
> > - so there are presumably some parts that aren’t flaws
> >
> > - but his “best hope” is that the stories <taken as a whole> will be of
> use
> > as “illustrative of…problems…and cautionary about…practices which younger
> > writers might prefer to avoid.”
> >
> >
> > Is he being funny - because that’s one way to read it. If these stories
> are
> > points on a curve that traces through _V._, _CoL49_, and _GR_ then…
> > how come “avoid?”
> > So like I’m sitting here going “yeah right, he’s got his tongue in his
> > cheek”
> >
> > Or y’know, maybe those 11 years between GR and SL were fraught with
> dubiety
> > & that’s what he really thinks - or did when he wrote it.
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>
>
>
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>