SLPAD 4

[Mark Kohut]

I know, Michael...I'm just having fun BUT

Pynchon does not say 'death is the main theme"......he says "attitude
toward death" which can mean,
and often does in him mean, embrace life....."fuck the war, they were in
love" is an attitude toward death and
a meaning in life.

On Sat, Feb 18, 2023 at 6:23 AM Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Take me on?
> https://youtu.be/iDXIa8ivFEc
>
> Ah well, I’m just raising the question. Glad to get a response. But like,
> in Dickens, he’s pretty serious, there’s death, a lot, but it isn’t the
> main theme, is it?
>
> I plan to bend like the willow in response to the force of the text, and
> of your good argumentation!
>
> Comparison of said text & argumentation to a stormy gale (such as
> Hurricane ?Audrey?) is rigorously *not* implied. This is a collegial PAD!
> Convivial, even.
>
> TSR, for the nonce, I’d like to stand for “The Small Rain” & will probably
> similarly treat other story titles, even amid otherwise voluble commentary.
> Like that Steve Martin movie - LA Story? - where there’s this long sign or
> something, & they only abbreviate one word. (-;
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 18, 2023 at 6:01 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I have lost the thread of whatever TSR is.
>>
>> TRP wrote 'attitude toward death" which means a vision of the meaning of
>> being human and
>> therefore the meaning of life. .....
>>
>> I agree and cannot read lightweight fiction (as I perceive it.
>> Milages vary). Fantasy as a genre is
>> arguably one genre....where the fuck is it grounded? Since death is a
>> fucking ground of being.
>>
>> Go on, take me on. I haven't read enough to argue back much.
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 18, 2023 at 4:10 AM Michael Bailey <
>> michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> The idea of rendering accents in fiction -
>>> Thomas Wolfe did this extensively, I seem to remember. Or excessively,
>>> though it was digable.
>>>
>>> Here it says it’s a regrettable plot point in TSR, but only regrettable
>>> because wrong.
>>>
>>> Mostly I think accents are kind of fun, maybe a little bit informative
>>> (if
>>> gotten correct) and part of the practice in mental gymnastics one tends
>>> to
>>> rely on fiction for providing. They deepen the illusion if they’re
>>> familiar; if unfamiliar, they pleasantly reify the enjoyable strangeness
>>> of
>>> fiction and get tucked away to gleefully subvocalize in odd moments,
>>> and/or
>>> test against real speech in the event of an actual encounter with
>>> speakers
>>> of that accent.
>>>
>>> Like in AtD - I can’t tell you how many times I’ve subvocalized Plug
>>> Loafsley’s “r to hv” shift when the Chums go to NYC. “…some koindt of a
>>> sailboat pitchuhv on it!”
>>>
>>> It does accord with the way a girl who’d moved from (I know not which
>>> part
>>> of) New York & attended “my” high school in Michigan spoke, for awhile.
>>> Memorable lo these many years.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The next mistake cited is in “attitude towards death.”
>>>
>>> “When we speak of “seriousness” in fiction ultimately we are talking
>>> about
>>> an attitude toward death—“
>>>
>>> There’s an interesting proposition.
>>>
>>> I wonder what he’s going to say about that in the rest of the sentence.
>>>
>>>
>>> When you read that, do you open a little file of possible
>>> counter-examples,
>>> other salient descriptors of serious fiction?
>>>
>>> - describing & decrying injustice
>>> - championing morality
>>> - avoidance of impossibilities & logical contradiction
>>> - treatment of ideas
>>>
>>> Etc etc.
>>>
>>>  I have my doubts about serious fiction having to deal with death. Seems
>>> like simply omitting it from the tale would work, or devising a
>>> containment
>>> method so that it’s dealt with in logical ways without being a main, or
>>> even a major, theme.
>>>
>>> But I’m not dogmatic about it (woof!)
>>> --
>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>>
>>