<div dir="ltr">Two aspects. The writer of a--the?--recent Vonnegut biography, Charles Shields, found this listserve and came on it for awhile<div>asking about Vonnegut and Pynchon. I recognized his name (since I had recently read his Harper Lee bio and talked to him off list) He assumed unquestioningly that P read him and wondered from us or others in what ways KV influenced Pynchon. </div><div><br></div><div>Seems Pynchon musta started writing GR when he finished V, if not before, Took a break to 'dash off' [joke] The Crying of Lot 49</div><div>then went back to GR until it was finished in 1972. SlaughterHouse-5 was pubbed in 1969, don't remember the month but think it was not too early in the year, so if he got to read it early, TRP might have read it by late 1968. </div><div><br></div><div>For GR, reminding me of the line that 'people are discouraged from being characters' is my Pynchonian surprise, so to speak, although his way with characters, that is that he does not attempt much 'roundness' per Forster,  must have long been underway. </div><div><br></div><div>Hey, you think Slothrop's roundness is a hidden P joke on characterization in fiction, esp as he "grows' (as traditional fictional characters are to do) into dissolution? Sorta P saying, I once created a round character but then the war discouraged him from existing.</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Mar 26, 2016 at 1:20 PM, Smoke Teff <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:smoketeff@gmail.com" target="_blank">smoketeff@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div>Is anything concrete known about Pynchon having read or enjoyed Vonnegut's book? He must've read it before <i>GR. </i><div><i><br></i></div><div>A few weeks ago I recommended reading it alongside <i>BtZ</i> and I repeat that. It's very fast.</div><div><br></div><div>Sharing a few passages I marked that seemed relevant.</div><div><br></div><div>p. 208</div><div><br></div><div>"There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters."</div><div><br></div><div>227</div><div><br></div><div>"There was a fire-storm out there. Dresden was one big flame. The one flame ate everything organic, everything that would burn."</div><div><br></div><div>213</div><div><br></div><div>"Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer."</div><div><br></div><div>213-214</div><div><br></div><div>(about a different story of Trout's)</div><div><br></div><div>"But what made the story remarkable, since it was written in 1932, was that it predicted the widespread use of burning jellied gasoline on human beings.</div><div><br></div><div>"It was dropped on them from airplanes. Robots did the dropping. They had no conscience, and no circuits which would allow them to imagine what was happening to the people on the ground."</div><div><br></div><div>215</div><div><br></div><div>"Trout told him that he had never seen a book of his advertised, reviewed, or on sale. 'All these years,' he said, 'I've been opening the window and making love to the world.'"</div><div><br></div></div>
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