Durrell and Pynchon's parodies (fwd)

[JULIUS RAPER]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 10:53:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: JULIUS RAPER <jrraper at email.unc.edu>
To: "Kim L. Serkes" <kls at newmediacenters.org>
Subject: Re: Durrell and Pynchon's parodies

	I agree with you about the linguistic play.  Isn't the play in the
5-tet chiefly in the structural variations, esp. the framing, of the
various novels? 
	Could you say more about what the series implies about being human
in our era?
	I still have 2/5s to read in M&D, but begin to wonder whether TRP
is parodying linear plots with the narrative "drive" of a novel about 2
men who lay a straight line down through the wilderness thereby dividing a
nation artificially in ways that persist to our time.  I've been away from
the P-group give and take.  Any comments yet about the linear plot and the
subject matter?
	My take on the narrative thrust of Avignon is that it's the quest
for the Templar's gold which turns into Blanford's quest for the old
esoteric gold of the alchemists, self-understanding, as Jung long ago
argued about alchemy.
				Jack

On Sun, 20 Jul 1997, Kim L. Serkes wrote:

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