From: n2412@cray.com (Joe Green)
Subject: Re: Q about _Gravity's_Rainbow_
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Date: 9 Apr 92 14:23:42 CDT

In article <1992Apr9.174800.19856@infonode.ingr.com> palmerc@palmerc@abulafia.b21.ingr.com (Christopher M. Palmer) writes:
>In article <73066@netnews.upenn.edu> weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
>
>>Since you mentioned Pollack, let me ask: do you have any appreciation
>>for non-representational painting?  Say a "typical" Picasso.  I'll
>>assume that you do.  The appreciation comes from both the closeness
>>to and the disparity from traditional painting.  You can find elements
>>of familiarity, but somehow they are put together non-literally.  The
>>same goes for non-narrative novels.  The author is doing something
>>different, and it takes a different response to appreciate.  In the
>>case of Pynchon, it also takes a good deal of stamina and homework.
>
>I don't have a lot of respect for non-representational art *if* I
>don't know that the artist is capable of representational art.

Why?  Probably because you think representational art more "difficult"
than non-reresentational art.  This is probably because you don't
understand the ways non-representational art is difficult.

  In the
>case of Picasso, I didn't have any real respect for his art until I
>saw a collection that had some of his early paintings which showed his
>transition from realism to abstract representation.  According to Kurt
>Vonnegut, Pollack also made this transition.  Without this background,
>how do we know that the person has artistic talent. 

And here you are equating artistic talent with the ability to
represent in the ways you are used to seeing things represented.


 Certainly some
>painting, abstract or otherwise, have innate artistic quality.  But if
>you are confronted with a Pollack or a late-period Picasso, how do you
>know if the painting is a challenge to traditional modes of art, or
>just the semi-random scribblings of someone who cannot paint.

And you need to be able to carry this over from painting to fiction.
All kinds of difficuties there.  How you "know" about the painting
involves a lot more than what you suggest -- including why the
quotation marks are placed around "know."

  Judged
>in a vacuum, there is some merit to the fact the some Picasso's look
>like attempts by pre-schoolers attempting representational art.
>
>In the case of books, I believe the same is true.  I tried to read
>Ulysses several times.  I was intrigued by the word games and the
>non-traditional modes of narrative, but I wondered sometimes if it was
>just an intellectual game.

No, Ulysses is the greatest comic novel in English.  This means that
it is the greatest novel.  

  I then read some of James Joyce's earlier
>works, "The Dead" stands out, and realized that Joyce *was* capable of
>very powerful traditional narrative.  With my mind settled, I read
>Ulysses and enjoyed it much more.

Why should the ability to write a traditional narrative "count"
more than the abilty to write other kinds?  Seems to me it should
count less.  

>
>All of this finally brings me back to Pynchon.  I have read Vineland
>and have attemped to read Gravity's Rainbow.  Evaluated in isolation,
>Vineland is an entertaining, but not very well written book.  The
>narrative structure is disjoint, but in some ways is just seems
>sloppy, not non-linear.

In some places even seems idiotic in the original sense of the word.
This is very difficult to do and has a moral point.

  About GR, I see it the way I saw Ulysses the
>first time.  Part are very interesting.  Pynchon's use of language is
>marvelous. But... I haven't finished it.  I haven't discovered a
>overall theme that binds it together and without that theme, it just
>seems like random writing exercises.  The jury is still out (maybe
>I'll try some other Pynchon, any suggestions? V?)

No, you are seeking a particular kind of satisfaction.  Traditional
narrative implies beginnings and endings and sorts of satisfactions
demanded by the ideology that dominates a culture that wastes lives
to produce narrative.  You are participating in this.

>
>While I'm making a clean sweep of different forms of art, I'll throw
>in that I had some of these same problems with the film Barton Fink.
>I love the Coen brothers movies and they are capable of tight plotting
>(Blood Simple), comedy (Raising Arizona), and emotional conflict
>(Miller's Crossing).  But then we have Barton Fink (which I suppose
>has emotional conflict, but certainly has none of the other two).  Without
>exception, I loved every *scene* in the move, but taken as a whole, I
>didn't think the movie was very good.

You missed the point of Barton Fink entirely.  
The stories Charlie could tell would be traditional
narratives that coerce the listener.  However, the story
Charlie acts is idiotic -- the story he acts when he is not the subject
of your gaze.  Your gaze structures his pain.  The narratives you long
for are nostalgic reproductions that colonize your mind in
expected ways.

Forget these little bedtime stories.  Join the idiots.  Share the fantasy.


>
>
>
>
>-- 
>|  Christopher M. Palmer          # There are two kinds of fool.  One says,   |
>/  Intergraph Corporation         # "This is old, and therefore good." And    \
>\  Huntsville, AL                 # one says, "This is new, and therefore     /
>|  palmerc@abulafia.b14.ingr.com  # better."                                  |


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