TRP and Gore Vidal

[Peter Trachtenberg]

On Wed, 11 Oct 1995 MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu wrote:

> Mes Pynchonelles--
> 
> Someone just mentioned Gore Vidal. Anybody read Gore Vidal novels out 
> there?  I recently read DULUTH, which I enjoyed very much.  I came 
> across an interesting tidbit.   As part of the novel's plot, a 
> mysterious red spaceship has landed on the outskirts of town.  The 
> spaceship's location is represented by a red pushpin stuck in a wall map 
> at police headquarters.  Whenever police Captain Eddie Thurow picks up 
> the pin and moves it to another location on the map, 
> the--actual--spaceship moves to that location.  On p. 67, when we're 
> first told about this, the phenomenon is attributed to:
> 
> "Pynchon's lesser corrollary to the law of gravity [whereby] whenever a 
> spaceship (macro) is represented by an object (micro) on an EXACT chart 
> of where gravity insists it rest when not under propulsion, then MACRO 
> will move on its plane exactly as MICRO moves on its representational 
> plane."
> 
> 
> There's a later repeat reference in an aside, when one of the aliens 
> dismisses the corollary as elementary knowledge.
> 
> 
> Anyone familiar with Vidal's  (non-historical) novels knows the time- 
> and space-warp games he plays.  My question to the group is, do we 
> consider him a --serious--enough writer to --seriously--consider 
> questions of influence, shared or divergent aims/methods, etc. with 
> Pynchon?  (Obvious in the above example, for example,  is the idea of 
> the map mapping the world, the interaction/imbrication of a 
> representation and the thing represented.) Or is he just being catty?  
> 
> Know any other references to TRP in Vidal's work? 
> 
> john m.
> 
>  I know of no other overt references, though LIVE FROM GOLGOTHA at 
times resembles an idea that TRP would have explored with infinitely 
greater subtlety, verve, and imaginative elan. Vidal's problems as a 
fiction writer stem from a) his ear, which is resolutely wooden b) his 
inability to approximate the waspish elegance of his essays and c) his 
failure to consider his characters as anything more than objects of 
writerly disdain--a failing that I suspect may also characterize his 
relationships with people. 

He IS very smart about politics, and his vision of the postwar American 
Military State seems to bear certain resemblances to Pynchon's hints in 
GR. Interesting that TRP hasn't written much about the Cold War; it and 
its cynical collusions and impotent conspiracies would seem to be natural 
territory for him. 

Adios, muchachos y muchachas

Toxic Shakti