dates

[davemarc]

At 01:31 PM 7/12/96 -0500, Brian wrote:
>John Mascaro asked:
>
>"I have been pondering this TV/VL thing for a while, frustrated specifically 
>by those parenthetical dates for every show mentioned.  Something feels out 
>of whack w/ them.  Even the parentheses seem loaded somehow, but I can't 
>figure out what disturbs me about them.  Are they like Slothrop's stars in 
>some weird way? "
>
>The story I heard (perhaps on this list) was that some critic accused 
>TRP of referring to a movie which hadn't been made yet, somewhere in 
>GR, and that the dates in VL were included as either an act of contrition
>to a valid criticism, or one book long extended finger to an invalid one.
>'Course, I've got nothing to back this story up, nor does it preclude the
>possibility of him encoding something in the dates, but after reading those
>Wanda letters, the dates sure start looking like some kind of in-joke.
>
>From Tim Page's article The Invisible Author (Newsday, January 8, 1990):

There is one new game that Pynchon seems to be playing with his readers.
"Gravity's Rainbow" was set in 1945 and several nit-picking critics have
observed that Pynchon, generally so meticulously careful with his details,
included a reference to the 'B' Western movie, "The Return of Jack Slade,"
which wasn't made until 1955.  In "Vineland," Pynchon takes no chances.
Every mention of an extant film is followed by its date of production....

davemarc