From: palmerc@palmerc@abulafia.b21.ingr.com (Christopher M. Palmer)
Subject: Re: Q about _Gravity's_Rainbow_
Organization: Intergraph Corporation, Huntsville, AL
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 17:48:00 GMT

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.  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.  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.  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.  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.

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.  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?)

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.




-- 
|  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."                                  |