Colors

[Aaron Yeater]

> The enormously important subject of color in GR always brings to mind "The
> Wizard of Oz" (film) and the way it strutted its rainbow in front of a
> Depression-haunted audience in the thirties.  Ruby slippers, emerald city,
> yellow brick road, shiny happy munchkins.  Is it any wonder that Pynchon,
> who confesses to all kinds of Depression nostalgia in _V._, makes his next
> major opus a novel-as-Farbenlehre?  Pretty colors, mindless pleasures, Pfau
> Zwei.  And yes, the colors *do* change...
 
interesting--one of the first 'popular' references to GR i ever 
noticed was in a new yorker essay by salman rushdie 3 years back or 
so--i read it on a plane, and it was one of the best essays i have 
read, but i cannot remember all the details.  nonetheless, i do 
remember rushdie noting a shared literary affinity with pynchon for 
the Wizard of Oz.  rushdie remembers it for its vibrancy, and i think 
its association with the somewhat surreal hindu indian film industry 
products...anyway, somehow rushdie brings GR into his discussion...

i'd be curious to hear peoples' reactions to a rushdie-TRP 
comparison.  i think rushdie has more in common with tom p. than 
with, say, the magical realists of latin america--maybe it's the 
shared sense of humor about britain, a sort of mocking anglophilia...

anyway, jes curious

aaron

"And my heart laughed: my name
a perfect snare, had trapped him."
      -The Odyssey, Book IX