Sweeping Without The Arc

I've read most of Jonathan Lethem's Ecstasy of Influence and have enjoyed such. The one point which lingers is Lethem's admission that if on a desert island he would rather have the complete works of Barbara Pym than those of Thomas Pynchon. That resonated with me. it recall Jacques Roubaud's obsession with fiction by English women.

I can't be expected to perform well these days. I feel ill at ease. I've grown weary of the latest pronouncements concerning one of the greatest writers of the last century. It isn't Gore Vidal I'm referencing, but instead Harlan Ellison and James Ellroy. This flattened scape of the virtual and new technologies is leaving me clammy; much more than the brunt of the ongoing heat.