Preterition, GR, and _Moby-Dick_

[David Casseres]

[jm sez]
>Litcrit or not, _Gravity's Rainbow_ without preterition is like _Moby-Dick_
>without its hyphen.  Calvinism seems to be the shared theme in the two
>books.  In GR the escape from Calvinism takes the form of the counterforce.
>In _Moby-Dick_ to escape from Calvinism one goes to sea and consorts with
>cannibals.  What's most amazing about _Moby-Dick_ is that the religious
>right (I've noticed) regards it as a wholesome book for children.  Just
>shows that they've never read it.  

Indeed.  *Most* people who think they have opinions about Moby-Dick (OK, 
OK, a hyphen) haven't read it.  I have read so much pompous blather about 
it, and it's as antipompous a book as I've ever read.

A-and, for another Pynchon-parallel, this time a matter of tone and 
technique, consider the passage that slides in out of nowhere and 
describes a seaman making himself a slick waterproof coat out of the hide 
of the whale's dick, or is it a Dick?  The passage makes you laugh while 
your hair slowly rises up on end, the same sort of surreal spookiness 
that occurs in so much of Pynchon.


Cheers,
David