Pynchon courses

[Jeffrey L. Meikle]

Just for the record, I taught GR as an assistant instructor (grad student)
at Texas in 1975 in an undergraduate American Studies seminar rather
pompously titled "Science Fiction and Technological Romance," which worked
its way from Loren Eiseley and Henry Adams's heat-death essays through H.P.
Lovecraft and Benjamin Whorf to Harlan Ellison's "Dangerous Visions" and
some other stuff, ending with GR.  Half the class were fans and the rest
were wholly lost--and I didn't know enough to know how to help them get
into it.  But I did have two independent cases of students who thought it
would help out if they regaled me during office hours with stories about
having met TRP (as a crazed hitchhiker and a mumbling hashhead at a party,
respectively).  I had more luck in 82-83 teaching it as part of a semester
course devoted to Pynchon at the U of Wurzburg, Germany, and in 92-93 at
the Institute of U.S. Studies (U of London), as part of a year-long
"cultures of modernity" course that ended with a month on postmodernism.
Again, I'd say about half the students "got it" and the rest, in this case,
were polite about it.  Since I'm not a lit person, I feel I can "get away"
with teaching Pynchon when I'm away from home.  I'm too much of a fan to be
able to do him "literary" justice. Maybe one of these years.  Unfortunately
I've got no insights on how to discuss GR in class (slowly?!) but agree
with the general opinion that a selection probably isn't the best way.

Jeff Meikle