Posted by Sterling on 1/5/2009, 23:18:39, in reply to "Re: Franny and Zooey / Lost in the Funhouse"
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Well, I love both Austen and Pynchon. These are not mutually exclusive tastes. But you know, if you don't respond to Pynchon (or anybody else, for that matter), why waste your time trying to read him? Not that I don't think that we should give a fair chance to authors whom we understand are held in high regard even if we don't immediately respond to them. Once that chance has been extended and failed, however, it seems to me that a reader should just write that author off. Personally, I have spent quite a bit of time with Faulkner. While I can recognize the quality of his writing, I confess that I am unable to respond with much pleasure. Reading Faulkner is mostly just hard work for me.
I guess it's the job of literature teachers to help you find the key to enjoying works that are not immediately accessible. If someone doesn't like it, though, what can you say? Take Austen, for instance. Suppose my hypothetical reader considers her work trivial domestic comedy. Proto-chick lit. Who cares who the heroine marries or if she marries at all? Where's the passion? Where's the emotional depth? And so on. How would I defend Miss Austen? Well, I could claim profound insights into the human condition are found within these seemingly light novels. I could point out how witty she is. Or how graceful her writing style. Somehow, I don't think that I could convince them.
I just like Pynchon. Commentaries and criticism may deepen my appreciation, but his novels amuse, amaze, and delight me just as a general reader. I could tell you not to worry too much about the plots, because they are always secondary and often intentionally too convoluted to really follow. I could tell you that his command of the English language is so great that on almost every page an image, a turn of phrase, a mot juste will take my breath way. I could tell you that he is one of the few authors who can make me laugh out loud. But if you don't respond to him, I don't think that I will convince you. God knows, people have been trying to convince me that I should enjoy Faulkner for forty years.
I am also interested in your comment, Steven, that with postmodernists you're not always sure what the author's point is.
This has led me into very deep philosophical water very quickly. What is the purpose of literature? For that matter, what is the purpose of art in general? Is Bleak House primarily a protest against the Court of Chancery? Is Huckleberry Finn a diatribe against the evils of slavery and racism? Yes and yes. But for me, it is the aesthetic experience of reading the novel that is most important. I can appreciate theme, plot, characterization, etc., but ultimately, does the novel succeed for me as a work of beauty? To be sure, the pleasures of tradition (Dickens), modernism (Joyce), and post-modernism (Pynchon or DeLillo) are different. But I enjoy Mark Rothko as much as I enjoy Turner. I enjoy Steve Reich as much as I enjoy Schubert. So I guess the thing is that I don't worry about whether the books have a point if the experience of reading them is sufficiently memorable.
