SLPAD - modest to a fault

[Mark Kohut]

I differ. Every non-fiction word we know of from Pynchon, from that
scathing letter to the NYT calling out
Romain Gary for saying he, TRP, plagiarized a name, thru all the personal
letters, thru particularly the
Watts Riot essay understandably, his earnest respect for telling it like it
is---NOT like his ironies, and ambiguities and
opening up into multi-meanings of his fiction---is manifest. I say he was
straight-talking in that intro to *Slow Learner.*

What I think he found bad about* Lot 49 *at mid-life is what some found bad
at a first reading. Clues about which are in
the *Slow Learner *intro. Clues about the kind of fiction he knew was good
and wanted to be as good as--yet different and beyond.
As he remarks about rain, symbols can kill the life in the best fiction.

I, perhaps against the grain, think that older Tom felt *Lot 49 *was too
full of abstraction, too full of his symbolic ways of metaphorizing---
as *Entropy* was (and surely *Mercy and Mortality in Venice *which he left
out of his Collected Works by not including it in *Slow Learner)*
*Mercy and Mortality* from the title borrowing too much meaning from
Shakespeare one might say as well as some of the over-the-top
plot happenings carrying more force in an expense of little life, as one
might argue)



On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 10:58 PM Dee Kilroy <deadendkid76 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>