historical or not? [was Re: Pynchonian Rorschach]

[Vaska]

Henry Musikar writes:
>Is Jody suggesting that there isn't a consensus, or simply that 
>Jules didn't "provoke this consensus?" There never is a consensus on
>this list. Bu-ut I haven't haven't heard any reasonable argument
>against the suggestion that Pynchon's concern for historical accuracy
>has declined post-GR. IMHO, most of the discussion of this issue is
>more concerned with whether Pynchon's work should really be considered
>historical fiction, and if so, shouldn't we then  "require" it to
>stand up to the same tests to which the hold the work of other
>historical novelists?

I see your point, Henry.  But it's not entirely fair to put it down to a
question of genre: _GR_ and _V_ are not exactly historical novels either....  

Also, I wouldn't want to blow the "historical accuracy" issue out of all
proportion: for the most part, _M&D_ seems to have been mightily well
researched.  This impression may reflect my ignorance, don't know, but my
guess is that Pynchon has simply become a little inattentive here and there.
And if that's true, it *is* news.

With Pynchon specifically -- I don't know what your copies of _V_ are like,
but I still have my first copy bought in Malta 21 years ago, and in this
edition the British characters "speak" in an English spelling, for instance
[it's that level of attention to detail...] -- it comes as something of a
jolt to find a few errors cropping up in an 800-page text.  With any other
novelist, it wouldn't be much of an issue at all.

And now that Meg has called us all to order, let's get back to _M&D_ and see
what each of us, variously, thinks of Pynchon's take on the Enlightenment,
say, or his treatment of slavery, and so on.  

Vaska