Durrell and Pynchon's parodies

[Kim L. Serkes]

At 20:39 -0400 7/20/97, JULIUS RAPER wrote:
>Paul Mackin is right about the connection between V. and Durrell--both
>parody and tribute, I'd guess.
[...]
>	It's intriguing to compare the evolution of the two since 1963,
>Durrell in the rather V.-esque REVOLT OF APHRODITE and the later pretty
>unique Avignon Quintet (1974-85); Pynchon in GR and now M&D.  The Quintet
>challenges in more ways than the latter, but no more than GR.
[...]

I'd missed Mackin's original message, but your comments are tantalizing.
Durrell's "Quintet" is certainly a challenge to the reader; while I find it
to lack the narrative drive and sense of (linguistic) play of M&D, it seems
more directly aimed at the question of what it means to be human in the
mid-late 20th c.

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Kim L. Serkes -- kls at newmediacenters.org -- San Francisco, CA, USA