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Mar. 5th, 2006 01:07 amLiving authors:
Why do I have such trouble with them? McCarthy joins Roth and Crowley as the only active fiction-writers I have the necessary respect for to actually read their books. Since high school--where it was basically all science fiction--I think I've only been able to finish multiple books (say three or more) by those guys, Gore Vidal, Paul Auster and Pynchon. Vidal and Auster I probably couldn't read now: Auster's got a fine style but he's lit lite, there's just not enough there, and Vidal's best fictions are his historical novels, which are never quite as good as his non-fiction. His sense of character is half Hollywood and half Shaw. There's stock types and scenes, there's rambling condescenders. Others, I just can't finish their books. Usually can't finish a chapter. You just see where they're going, or anyway the range of where they might go. Or when they're being new you know the new's not going to pan out, is going to go nowhere at all. Morrison and Marquez might be exceptions, the few pages I've read of those two just seemed too busy for me to commit to at the time. I've tried Oates, Updike, the late Bellow, Salter, Penelope Fitzgerald, Byatt, Mailer, Wintersen, Amis (blech), Self etc. etc. Perhaps I picked the wrong books, but with the ones I respect even their offest books are more on than those seemed.
Pynchon: I read his shorter books in my late teens, and took a stab at GR. There's a lot there but his whimsy sets my teeth on edge too often. And a huge fault of his early works is a sort of asshole objectivity, a stab at posthumanist "cool" and authorial invisibility. Vineland won my heart just by displaying his for once. It's a structural mess, sure, but by a person. I think this is why it's widely disliked, frankly: his typical fan prefers his Demiurge mode. Mason & Dixon I dipped a toe in last fall. The whimsy was again in the gentler mode, but there was an awful lot of it. I'll need to scent a larger design or something before I'll commit myself to that much Pynchonesque.
Saramago people keep recommending at me. I read and liked his children's story, and read some of All the Names. He seems awfully good. I do have some reservations about his apparent method. He narrows the spotlight pretty tight and moves it slowly, something like Kafka did in his novels, but without even his abrupt transitions and surprises. I'm sure it will travel to all kinds of great places, but it makes me feel claustrophobic. Give me some daemonism, polyphony. It's like he's making toy ships. At least in those texts. Anyway, that's my first impression, presumably a false one.
Why do I have such trouble with them? McCarthy joins Roth and Crowley as the only active fiction-writers I have the necessary respect for to actually read their books. Since high school--where it was basically all science fiction--I think I've only been able to finish multiple books (say three or more) by those guys, Gore Vidal, Paul Auster and Pynchon. Vidal and Auster I probably couldn't read now: Auster's got a fine style but he's lit lite, there's just not enough there, and Vidal's best fictions are his historical novels, which are never quite as good as his non-fiction. His sense of character is half Hollywood and half Shaw. There's stock types and scenes, there's rambling condescenders. Others, I just can't finish their books. Usually can't finish a chapter. You just see where they're going, or anyway the range of where they might go. Or when they're being new you know the new's not going to pan out, is going to go nowhere at all. Morrison and Marquez might be exceptions, the few pages I've read of those two just seemed too busy for me to commit to at the time. I've tried Oates, Updike, the late Bellow, Salter, Penelope Fitzgerald, Byatt, Mailer, Wintersen, Amis (blech), Self etc. etc. Perhaps I picked the wrong books, but with the ones I respect even their offest books are more on than those seemed.
Pynchon: I read his shorter books in my late teens, and took a stab at GR. There's a lot there but his whimsy sets my teeth on edge too often. And a huge fault of his early works is a sort of asshole objectivity, a stab at posthumanist "cool" and authorial invisibility. Vineland won my heart just by displaying his for once. It's a structural mess, sure, but by a person. I think this is why it's widely disliked, frankly: his typical fan prefers his Demiurge mode. Mason & Dixon I dipped a toe in last fall. The whimsy was again in the gentler mode, but there was an awful lot of it. I'll need to scent a larger design or something before I'll commit myself to that much Pynchonesque.
Saramago people keep recommending at me. I read and liked his children's story, and read some of All the Names. He seems awfully good. I do have some reservations about his apparent method. He narrows the spotlight pretty tight and moves it slowly, something like Kafka did in his novels, but without even his abrupt transitions and surprises. I'm sure it will travel to all kinds of great places, but it makes me feel claustrophobic. Give me some daemonism, polyphony. It's like he's making toy ships. At least in those texts. Anyway, that's my first impression, presumably a false one.
