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From: krantz@csd2.UUCP (Michaelntz)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Re: Thomas Pynchon (really William Gaddis)
Message-ID: <2660019@csd2.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Mar-86 13:38:00 EST
Article-I.D.: csd2.2660019
Posted: Tue Mar 11 13:38:00 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Mar-86 06:28:27 EST
References: <1746@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Organization: New York University
Lines: 29


First, the usual disclaiming apology for the persiflag preceding.  Why
is it that :q! gets you out sometimes, but not others?  Cheez!!

> The style, organization, and tone
> that Pynchon seemed to have created for his _V._ seem a less impressive
> achievement after you discover that he could have learned most of it from
> a book published a few years earlier, _The Recognitions_ by William Gaddis,
> the most important American novelist of this half of our century.  (GulP! at
> that unhedged claim.

            > -- Mitch Marks @ UChicago

Mr. Marks had better gulp.  (Be advised, the following is NOT a flame...)
The notion that Mr. Gaddis, talented as he is, has achieved a body of work
whose stature approaches that of MY patron novelist, E.L. Doctorow, seems
to me to be rather ludicrous.  Doctorow's _Welcome To Hard Times_, _Ragtime_, 
_Lives Of The Poets_, and _World's Fair_ are all masterful works of fiction,
and _The Book Of Daniel_ is, to my mind, the finest novel published since
World War II, with the possible exception of the afore-discussed _Gravity's
Rainbow_.  Gaddis can write, and can write quite well.  But don't put him
up with the biggest boys (and girl - Toni Morrison's in the top four or
five, for me - see _Sula_ and _The Song Of Solomon_.)

The pronounciation of _V_ is "vee".  Any rumors to the contrary are to
be patently ignored.

- Michael Krantz
  "Springsteen, literature and thou..."