Recommended Reading

[LARSSON at vax1.mankato.msus.edu]

Given Pynchon's religious, ethnic and academic roots, it could be useful
to revisit some of the American "canon classics."  I'd suggest some pretty
obvious ones--that I assume TRP studied as part of his standard curriculum
at Cornell, if not earlier:

THE SCARLET LETTER
Jonathon Edwards--"Sinners in the hands of an angry God"
Some other Hawthorne, eg. "Young Goodman Brown" and "My Cousin, Major Molineaux"MOBY DICK (also see Melville's less well-known ISRAEL POTTER)
a lot of stuff by T.S. Eliot--but especially THE WASTELAND
also read at least early poems by Wallace Stevens and Robert Frost!

Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)