England in Pynchon

[Paul Delany]

Interesting post, Andrew - talking of credentials, I was born within
a month of Pynchon and spent WWII on the outskirts of London - a V2
took out a house about 200 yards away, but I was evacuated to
Cornwall at the time - within GR I believe in TP's London, but there
are many things I remember from that period that I miss - of course,
I was a child, rather than of the characters' age. 
  Like most people of my generation I still have an obsession with
the war - which, however, I first knew through comic books,
propaganda, and a shielded version of reality that we kids got from
our elders. I suppose my reservations about England in TP are that
it remains a foreign country - analogous to the way that women remain
a foreign country in P, probably the greatest weakness of his work.
To get the "real thing," try a book like Doris Lessing's *In Pursuit
of the English* - a small masterpiece, I think.
  While recommending - the movie "Map of the Human Heart" has some
interesting Pynchonesque features, though no direct connection that I
know of.
  Now I was in Berkeley in the 60s and Lot 49 gives you the true
flavor of that time - so I see a difference between that & London in
GR.
  Paul Delany