Graham Greene

Lot 49 is amusing, but in general I find Pynchon vastly overrated. He is a sloppy writer sentence by sentence--Gravity's Rainbow is intolerably badly written. I read it at age 14 when it first came out, loved it, and now find it unreadable. But if you want a challenging big American novel that is beautifully written, try William Gaddis' THE RECOGNITIONS, which is one of the very best American novels of the last century. It is long, dense, complex, but also lucid and siperbly styled. Or yo u could go back to Faulkner's ABSOLOM, ABSOLOM which is complex but worth the effort--probably his masterpiece. Either book is infinitely superior to Pynchon's puerilities.

Y'know, Larry, there are times when your dismissal of artists you don't like borders on rudeness. In fact you trample over that line routinely. Can't you be enthusiastic about what you like without sneering at other people's tastes?

Criticism is one thing, and petulance is another...

D'artagnan, exactly WHO am I being rude to if I express the opinion that Pynchon writes badly? And why am I not allowed to say exactly what I want about any writer I want on a thread that I began? The real question here is why your sensibilities are so fragile that you cannot stand to read a forceful opinion. I sneered at NOBODY. Don't accuse me of things I haven't done. I simply stated my negative opinion of Pynchon. If you can't take it, so much the worse for you. Maybe you should stay off threads where I post.

If literature is an important experience to you, as it is to me, as both a writer and a reader, then you are going to bring strong passions to both the reading and the discussing of it. I do not regard literature as a pastime; I regard it as a fine art, one that I try to practice myself, and therefore I regard it with the utmost seriousness. So when I say that Thomas Pynchon is a sloppy writer or that Jonathan Franzen's characters are one-note, it is not just letting off steam, it is a considered opinion on a subject that matters a lot to me. I can see how my seriousness would distress the frivolous. But it shouldn't perplex anyone who takes literature to be a matter of the highest importance. Saying something is bad is the first duty of the critic. Should I pretend to like something for fear of offending someone else's (bad) taste???

I think D'Art has a point, Larry. When you join a conversation, it's perhaps not a good start to opine that the much-loved subject of the conversation is "amusing" but "overrated" and "sloppy." Sometimes in a thread of this kind there tends to be a little showing off. I have no defense against literary elitisim: I read all over the map and am aware that some may respond to my taste dismissively. There are things I read and loved in my twenties that I wouldn't touch now with a ten-foot pole: I started to reread Salinger recently (not read since fourteen) and found myself saying, Nope, not readable any more... Worse, I'll sometimes enthuse about a book I read thirty years ago and then later, having looked at it again, regret that I'd recommended it to a friend before taking a fresh look at it.... So okay -- here's a special for Larry: WOW YOU READ GADDIS! and to D'Art, profound thanks for bringing Pynchon into the conversation.

tartarin:

You are quite wrong on all counts. I did not join a conversation; this is a thread about Graham Greene that I originated. And since when are we forbidden from expressing our opinions of authors other people mention? I thought, perhaps naively, that here in the Books forum we wanted to exchange views and tastes. I make no apology for what I said about Pynchon--he is hardly sacrosanct. By the way, if I am forbidden from being negative, so is everybody else, including D'Artagnan, who seems to be strangely unable to deal with grown-up literary criticism.

Sorry, Larry. My understanding was that you created a forum in which conversations would be held. I took (and I think D'Art took) your "puerilities" and "amusing" and "sloppy" and "intolerably badly written" as a put-down, not merely a disagreement about Pynchon.

By the way, I hadn't thought about Gaddis in years (and appreciate the reminder!). I went over to Amazon to read the reviews and note that Gaddis and Pynchon are talked about together. Perhaps it's a matter of taste, not of literary experience and discernment.

"The Comedians"

Greene described a world that is truly beautiful and mysterious, and still remains to this day, akin to Dante's Inferno.

We are about to "conquer" dictators and regimes on the other side of the planet, and yet with all our might and power.....Haiti has always defeated us.

A world filled with voodoo and death, and darkness and secrets, is where even Bin Laden and Al Quida.....could learn a thing or two.

Graham Greene, was able to do it justice.

Welcome, KYN2000 -- right on!

Dear "Tart"

I must tell you: your "Member Description" was more than worth, the price of admission.

Thank you.......

Kyn, thanks for getting this conversation back to Graham Greene!

Tartarin: I looked up Gore Vidal's essay on contemporary American fiction in which he eviscerates Pynchon. Among other things he says:

"Comparing Pynchon's prose to that of, say, Joyce is like comparing the work of a kindergartener to that of a graduate student."

I suppose if I had posted that in the first place I would have been accused of putting somebody down?

LARRY THIS IS ABOUT YOUR MANNERS NOT YOUR TASTES!

Graham Greene- I've tried to read every book of his, the most memorable for me being Our Man in Havana, and Travels With My Aunt. Another British author who always satisfies is Iris Murdoch.

Joyce Cary is another interesting but forgotten British writer of the mid-20th century.

Gala, I've been trying to find a sentence which I believe I read in Murdoch about forty years years ago (whew!!). I'm not even sure it was Murdoch, though it has her flavor. Here's a very rough approximation: I don't like men whose bodies are bigger than their brains. Ring any bells?

Tartarin, ha! Unfortunately, it doesn't sound familiar.

Larry, in another recent discussion (one about films, I believe), you objected to another poster who mentioned a poll of film critics to help his argument. Your point, as I recall, was along the lines of: "I don't care what critics say, this is what I think..." Yet now you're letting Gore Vidal make your argument against Thos. Pynchon. What gives, Lar?

Gee whiz, D'Artagnan, I didn't know you cared about what I post so much. I'm touched.

I don't know Joyce Carey's work at all. I've only read one Iris Murdoch novel, A SEVERED HEAD, which may not represent her at her best--I thought it was adroit but a bit lightweight.

Another neglected Brit writer of the last century is Ford Madox Ford, whose series of novels PARADE'S END is one of the masterpieces of the English novel. THE GOOD SOLDIER is probably his best known novel, and it is superb, but he wrote many other fine books, including THE FIFTH QUEEN, a trilogy of historical novels about Henry VIII.

Tartarin: I am demonstrating my exquisite manners by ignoring your last post, shouting and all. That is what I would do if a baby started to scream in a restaurant I happened to be dining in.

larry, A Severed Head was a bit lightweight, but it was enjoyable to read. You may want to try The Black Prince by Murdoch it's got more substance to it.