A vase is a jug with a pretty picture

[Burgess, John]

Nice post...

Your statement about there having to have been those objecting to the 
printing press is accurate.  But you could have taken it further... Plato 
complains about books (handwritten, of course) because THEY would 
diminish the role of memory....

People are always going to bitch about new things that mean they will 
have to learn new or different ways of doing things.  Disseminating 
information is just another one of those things.... as is, perhaps, 
assimilating information.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of Pynchon's work (at least for me) is 
the way he goes, balls-out, in ejecting information, daring the reader to 
find error (and probably not giving a fig if one does).  He has consumate 
grasp of his medium and is able to blend the techniques of other media 
(film, music, cartoons, etc.) into a coherent whole, far greater than the 
sum of its parts.  

In a manner, GR is like watching a week's worth of TV, following various 
casts of various dramas, comedies, soaps and the evening news reports.  
We come into the stories _in media res_, not entirely sure who the 
characters are, just what the plot-line is in any given story or series.  
Some we follow to some sort of conclusion, others we leave long before 
the story is finished.

That Pynchon is able to do this, with wit, coherence, style and emotion 
is, for me, what makes him such a compelling author.  To my taste, V. and 
GR were sublime; CoL49 and VL were excellent, but in a style less 
appealing.

BTW, having been raised to know that I was a member of the elect (even if 
it were only the elect of trash collectors), I've never had moral qualms 
about the existence of elites and the preterite.  How society treats the 
various groups, though, is another matter....