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Monday, December 12, 2016
what I'm doing here
Just a quick post here to note that this ongoing orgy of Pynchoniana will be neither systematic nor scholarly, but rather impulsive and haphazard. I am reading Pynchon with a particular set of concerns in mind, and don't feel obliged to be either fair or balanced, though I do hope to be unafraid.
A few weeks ago I confessed to my friend Edward Mendelson — who remains, for my money, the best critic of Pynchon, even though other interests and obligations have kept him from writing about Pynchon for many years — that I treasure in my secret heart the desire to write a book-length theological meditation on Pynchon. Edward agreed, first, that Pynchon is one of the most theologically literate of novelists (though this is rarely recognized), and second, that I really ought to write that book. These posts are a kind of trial run for that potential project, as well as for the bigger project linked above. As I've explained before, is what I think blogging is for: trying out ideas. What I like about blogging is that you have a responsibility to write clearly and accessibly but you're not required to manifest the scholarly completeness and logical rigor that would be expected in published work. That, for me, when I'm trying to develop and try out ideas, is a nice place to be.
So we'll see how this works out.
A few weeks ago I confessed to my friend Edward Mendelson — who remains, for my money, the best critic of Pynchon, even though other interests and obligations have kept him from writing about Pynchon for many years — that I treasure in my secret heart the desire to write a book-length theological meditation on Pynchon. Edward agreed, first, that Pynchon is one of the most theologically literate of novelists (though this is rarely recognized), and second, that I really ought to write that book. These posts are a kind of trial run for that potential project, as well as for the bigger project linked above. As I've explained before, is what I think blogging is for: trying out ideas. What I like about blogging is that you have a responsibility to write clearly and accessibly but you're not required to manifest the scholarly completeness and logical rigor that would be expected in published work. That, for me, when I'm trying to develop and try out ideas, is a nice place to be.
So we'll see how this works out.
Labels:
housekeeping,
pynchonread,
Thomas Pynchon
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About
Commentary on technologies of reading, writing, research, and, generally, knowledge. As these technologies change and develop, what do we lose, what do we gain, what is (fundamentally or trivially) altered? And, not least, what's fun?
Alan Jacobs
Alan Jacobs is Distinguished Professor of the Humanities in the Honors Program of Baylor University and the author, most recently, of How to Think and The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography. His homepage is here.

Sites of Interest

How to Read Well in an Age of Distraction
Watch video of Alan Jacobs discussing his book in a Washington, D.C. lecture in June 2011.

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If you write that book, I will buy a copy. Actually, I will buy multiple copies. And I am eager to read your installments here.
I deeply appreciate this effort (both the blogging and a potential book). Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
I would very much like to read that book.