on pynchon's blurbs

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

> 	I don't know whether TP thinks blurbs are a joke, but most of 
> them (blurbs in general that is, not TP's necessarily) are masterpieces 
> of inanity.  My favourite is on the back of the Bantam LOT 49:
> 
> THE COMEDY CRACKLES, THE PUNS POP, THE SATIRE EXPLODES
> 					--The New York Times

For some reason this reminds me of the occasion I learnt about Pynchon
for the first time. I came across him in the canonic literary history book
of the Nordic countries, the originally Danish "Literature of the Nations"
(from the beginning of the 70s) in twelve parts. On the LAST PAGE
of part 12 you can read (translation mine): 

"Verbal innovation and extravagant imagination are characteristic of
*John Barth* (born 1930), whose opus *The Sot-Weed Factor* (1960) is a
magnificent pastiche of a 18th century novel, and *Thomas Pynchon* (born
1937), who depicts U.S.A. as a paradise of psychopaths in various novels 
(*The Crying of Lot 49*, 1966). The abovementioned book has a thriller-
like plot, in which he has assembled all the worst elements of the
American society. It includes mafia and conspirators, capitalistic pursuit
of interests, psychoanalysis, drugs, weird sexual intercourses, and pop 
music idols, whose band is called The Paranoids. One of the characters 
dissipates completely under the influence of LSD. The novel gives a 
broadside of horror comedy, presented in a fierce language that is like
a series of explosions. What can you do -- reality surpasses all
parodies, doesn't it?"  


Heikki