UMd Pynchon/DeLillo Class

[Chris Stolz]

Interesting post on the "read-aloudness" of _GR_.  It would be
interesting to speculate on how this exactly works.  I can think
of other writers (Kerouac, say), whose work is very much readable
keeping in mind that the narrator should (ideally) be standing
beside you at the bar, working on his third beer, while he tells
you the story.  How is it that GR sounds already-spoken?

My guess is that the self-consciousness of the language has
something to do with it.  Pynchon never really commits himself to
his ecstatic and free-flowing prose sections (most are undermined
somehow later, like the war's evensong section, or Jessica
ruminating about Roger).  The multiple tones of narration have
something to do with it, I think, and so does the sense that the
work isn't addressed to the reader as much as it is to a shifting
implied audience...

any thoughts, listmembers?


-- 
chris stolz 			snail:  16 oakview pl. sw calgary ab
cstolz at acs.ucalgary.ca			canada t2v-3z9 (403) 281-6794

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	"He rode in steeplechases, fought in duels, and recognised only 
	three kinds of people: officers, women and civilians, the last-
	named a physically underdeveloped and spiritually contemptible
	class of humanity whose wives and daughters were the legitimate 
	prey of army officers."	

					-- Robert Musil

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