Holt PR

[Grant White]

At 09:58 3/12/96 -0700, Steelhead wrote:
>The Henry Holt Press Release may well have been written by Pynchon. But it
>sounds to me like it was written by John Barth--or perhaps one of his grad
>students. Indeed, the novel is beginning to sound more and more like Barth
>circa the Sotweed Factor. And I'm wondering, why go to the trouble? I mean
>really.
>"re-imagined," "updated version,"

But that's what it's all about.
 Pynchon and Barth have got more in common than you think; the reiteration
of a variety of tropes is one of the big ones.

 What makes Pynchon better, in my humble opinion, is the degree of
imagination he uses within the "re-imagination" of  things.  Setting the
scope of the novel within such a tight frame means that the imagination has
to be extra sharp to work within it and make something meaningful and
deliberate out of what would otherwise be stale. 

Its the way the story is told, not the story itself which makes the difference.

Cheers,

Grant



Grant White
Multimedia & Special Collections Librarian/WWW Editor					
University of Newcastle
Central Coast Campus Information Resource Centre
ulgw at dewey.newcastle.edu.au
http://www.ccc.newcastle.edu.au
Ph: 043-484022
Fax: 043-484215

"......and the man climbed back
Out of the marvellous as he had known it."
Lightenings VIII
Seamus Heaney