Other SF writers? (Was: How list works and questions

Matthew Keeley · 12 May 2008, 21:13 · from 2008-May.txt.gz

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From: matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com (Matthew Keeley)
Date: Mon, 12 May 2008 22:13:24 +0100
Subject: (urth) Other SF writers? (Was: How list works and questions
In-Reply-To: <45476.1210624633 at speakeasy.net>
References: <45476.1210624633 at speakeasy.net>
Message-ID: <44fb53d10805121413u63eb7c66m7a2c84a4f468fae8 at mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 9:37 PM, Allan Anderson <rubel at goosemoon.org> wrote:

> I'd also love to get into some book-puzzle talk with some fans of both
> Wolfe and
> Pynchon.

I would certainly be up for some Pynchon discussion at a future date, but so
far I've "only" read Against the Day, and I gather a proper Pynchon
discussion needs to discuss The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity's Rainbow.

I did very much like Against the Day (One kind of has to, to read a book
that runs almost 1100 pages in hardback), but there was so much going on in
there that was over my head. Of course, some of that is just Pynchon's
perversity - he's not the sort of writer where every word counts for
something, and sometimes he just wants to make obscure or dirty jokes.
Still, I found parts of the book extremely moving, and I don't think I've
read anything funnier than this one scene involving a dog... I literally
laughed for five minutes straight.

It would be interesting to see what kind of overlap there is between Wolfe
fans and Pynchon fans. Both can be difficult, but I think Wolfe is more
consistently entertaining, though that's hardly the only way to judge
literature. Still, Against the Day "drags" much more than The Book of the
New Sun, which is of similar length. And of course the politics of Wolfe and
Pynchon would be more or less diametrically opposed...

-Matt
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