Happy Birthday GR....sent 6:15 AM Australian time.....a good, good piece....

[Erik T. Burns]

History Is Hard to Decode: On 50 Years of Thomas Pynchon’s “Gravity’s
Rainbow” (lareviewofbooks.org)
<https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/history-is-hard-to-decode-on-50-years-of-thomas-pynchons-gravitys-rainbow/>



On Tue, Feb 28, 2023 at 11:01 PM Dee Kilroy <deadendkid76 at gmail.com> wrote:

> re: "Readable"
>
> While I wholly agree with that, that which is Readable By All is not meant
> to be Read By All.  My boyfriend has a copy of GR he's never cracked, nor
> am I encouraging him to crack it.  As a book that contains multitudes, some
> of those multitudes are distasteful to readers w/ certain sensibilities.  I
> can read about the scat & not be put off; whereas I don't think my
> boyfriend would want to endure the suffering of Brigadier Pudding-- much
> less truck with the underage sex scenes.  As a gay guy I love Pynchon, but
> I'm not going to pitch P to anybody in my community any more than I would
> push William S. Burroughs, Marguerite Duras, Dennis Cooper, or Samuel R.
> Delany.  Some writers are meant for a discerning, limited, readership.
> Hopefully not an obscure one!
>
> Much as I love P, he's perversely uncommercial.  A Gilbert Sorrentino with
> more enduring mass-appeal celebrity.  (Not an insult!)
>
> On Tue, Feb 28, 2023 at 11:21 AM Arthur Fuller <fuller.artful at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Unreadable? What idiot could not make it past the first sentence without
> > falling into a well of Readable? I am no scholar in terms of 20th C
> > literature, but I am fully prepared to argue that GR stands as one of the
> > Great Novels of the 20th century. So does V., and so does The Crying of
> Lot
> > 49.
> > Lest you dismiss me as a Pynch-ophile, let me add that my second
> favourite
> > American author of the previous century is William Gaddis -- whose books
> > (all too few) I have read several times. IMO, JR is a masterpiece, but so
> > was The Recognitions -- how appropriately titled, given itss
> un-recognition
> > as great art.
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 28, 2023 at 3:38 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://theconversation.com/amp/join-the-counterforce-thomas-pynchons-postmodern-epic-gravitys-rainbow-at-50-196657?fbclid=IwAR2pKRckXm7QxRt6YVVx6LIxIvLb7FGWCoPKfMhia49HUBroPzD0z7VYrTU
> > > --
> > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Arthur
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>