Flatness and Language

[Bonnie Surfus (ENG)]

I think I've been misunderstood.  _Pynchon's_ language doesn't 
necessarily deteriorate in an iterative fashion starting w/ _V._.  
Language, however, particularly 'heartfelt language," poetic language, 
has.  I believe that _V._ is far from flat.  Same for GR.  It's in 
examining not just the words themselves, but in overall ideological 
orientations of various characters and how they interract w/in those 
constructs, that we see the decline.  Is this more clear?  Pynchon 
himself, his work, is anything but flat.

On Thu, 5 Jan 1995 LARSSON at vax1.mankato.msus.edu wrote:

> 
> Bonnie Surfus suggests that Pynchon's language has (deliberately?)
> deteriorated since V., but although does she mean to include GR in that
> generalization.  Actually, V. has always struck me as being rather "flat"
> despite occasional brilliant moments (especially the tour-de-force Chapter
> 3), but is there anything anywhere in Pynchon that matches the sheer
> flow and eloquence of some passages in GR?  I'm think in particular of the 
> Advent/Battle of the Bulge meditation (set against Susso's song) and the
> Titan passage.
> 
> VINELAND inevitably pales by comparison, but even there moments of
> eloquence emerge.
> 
> --Don Larsson, Mankato State U., MN
>