Tourism as Scholarship

[Scott Allen]

In an exchange of notes about the accuracy of Pynchon's portrayal of
some cities, esp. London, I mentioned that perhaps TP was looking more
for his descriptions to jive with popular conceptions of these places
than with actual geographic details.  Someone (I don't have the note,
I think their name was Andrew) wrote back (headed "A Slight Quibble")
suggesting that an important part of Pynchon's project was to show how
history is a social/narrative construction, and speaking of the
"historical/scholarly" portrayal as one TP's work all undermines.

I agree.  That was my point.  As opposed to the reconstructive project of,
say, _Ulysses_, where one could retrace Bloom's steps block by block in
the real Dublin, I think TP seeks to reconstruct a London or NY or Malta
that even people who haven't been there (esp. people who haven't been 
there) would recognize as "real."  It is after all the popular conception
of such places, these sites which have become tropes of tourism, that
TP seems to foreground.  And yet I was also saying that TP is too much
an encyclopedic novelist to not include enough real details to convince
most that the portrayal is accurate as well as popular, real as well as
aesthetic.  San Narcisco is more a trope of Southern California than any
block-by-block replication of a real town, yet it seems real enough that
it keeps us guessing where it might "really" be.  And in fact generating
arguments about this or that town that might have served as the "real" model
for San Narcisco (among other places) would probably amuse and please TP
no end.

Finally, for those interested in connections between TP and DeLillo--and
there have been a number of notes about this topic--you might check out
the upcoming issue of the e-journal _Postmodern Culture_, which will sport
a special cluster of essays on DeLillo, at least 2 of which discuss 
connections with Pynchon.  For more information, send a message to
eaeg at unity.ncsu.edu.