Richard O.
asked
Lee D. Thompson:
Among your influences, I've read all but McElroy. I've reread Barthelme recently and delightedly, and am heartened by you and others reading The Waves, for me Woolf's most difficult book. There's George Saunders but I wonder whether you think the element of (post)-mod invention and play is as central to contemporary fiction as that in Joyce, O'Brien, Pynchon, Barthelme as well as Borges and Calvino?
Lee D. Thompson
That's a great question, Richard, and I'm not sure I have much insight there, primarily because I haven't read much - not nearly *as much* - contemporary fiction as the older post(modern) work... I think play has always been there, centuries of it, and certainly had new bloom in the past century, but maybe now the bloom is off that rose? Then again, were I just beginning to discover authors new and old, the way I did 30+ years ago... I'd likely feel different about new work and invention/play... The only new author who's delighted me the way Barthelme and O'brien did is Keith Ridgway... some Saunders but to a lesser degree. McElroy's idea of play is something else altogether, and not for everyone.
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