Pynchon and the postmodern

[Ken Jones]

> But implicit 
> in most pomo writing, art and architecture is the idea that grand works 
> are no longer possible, that such feats are somehow antiquated, 
> irrelevant, retrograde or bombastic. And GR is nothing if not a grand 
> work: its only challengers in this country in the last three decades are 
> William Gaddis's four existing novels and perhaps Don DeLillo's 
> collective oeuvre.

I agree with Peter's well-argued take on Pynchon as more modernist
than postmodernist, but would like to add to his list of "grand
works." While perhaps not in the league of GR (what is?), I would
include Joseph McElroy's Lookout Cartridge and Women & Men and Robert
Coover's The Public Burning. Though I haven't read the book, I'm sure
William Gass' recent The Tunnel could also be considered. And if
we're including "collective oeuvres," how about the dearly departed
Stanley Elkin and the well-preserved William Burroughs?

Tom LeClair wrote an interesting book on the subject of giant
modernist/postmodernist works (he refers to them as "system
novels"). Wish I could remember the name. Among Pynchon, DeLillo,
Coover, Gaddis, and McElroy, he also cites Ursula LeGuin's Always Coming Home
and Joseph Heller's Something Happened (which I think is a very
underrated book; probably the best work on American business and
an American businessman since the days of Dreiser, Lewis, and
Dos Passos).

Ken
kenj at cadence.com