Pynchonian Rorschach

[David Casseres]

Henry sez
>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....

Well, as always I'll *try* to be reasonable....

Seems to me Gravity's Rainbow has not been subjected to the same kind of 
fact-checking as Mason & Dixon, simply because it doesn't even remotely 
appear to "historical fiction" while Mason & Dixon does, remotely.  Has 
anyone determined whether Mickey Rooney was *really* at Potsdam?  Whether 
the tunnels at Nordhausen were *really* in the shape of an SS insigne?  
What the waters of the mouth of the Elbe, and the surrounding Baltic 
coastline, are *really* like?  Whether Herero tradition *really* uses an 
aardvaark burrow as part of a healing/integration process?  What *about* 
those Soviet-driven alphabet reforms in Kirghizstan, eh?

In Gravity's Rainbow we eat up all that stuff with little concern for the 
accuracy of those facts, being (silly us) absorbed in the literary 
effect, which only depends on verisimilitude, not factuality.  In Mason & 
Dixon, we seem to be approaching with some kind of chip on our shoulder.  
Well, Tom, you gave us Gravity's Rainbow and then disappointed us with 
Vineland, what else can you show us?  What's this, a *historical 
novel???*  OK, is the 18th Century language authentic?  We can tell, 
we're literate, literary Anglophones.  Is the naval history correct?  We 
know, 'cause we can read O'Brian too.  Is the Southern Africa history 
correct, or the St. Helena stuff?  Well, um, maybe, who nose?  But that 
American history!   Aha, gotcha Tom, a lot of us are actually *Americans* 
and we know this stuff!  Literary effect?  What literary effect?

I claim if the two novels were approached in the same way, the concern 
for historical accuracy would turn out to be about the same, and about as 
relevant to the literary intent of the two novels.


Cheers,
David