Pynchon travels

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

This will be the first Augustan mailing to the list. (Too many 
overripe nights of moondance awaiting us; one more eternity to be 
lived through before astral weeks will turn us immature, again.)

The Julian month is over in Finland and almost over here in Midwest 
and I do know Caesarean people who think M&D is too idle, too slack.

What follows will not help them; it will touch Augustan writers.

Some reviewers have compared M&D to Fielding.

However, the strong sense of place (which this thread is about in a way)
is one thing that distinguishes M&D from, say, Tom Jones; the latter
really is a comedy of manners, which takes place *between* characters. 
The setting's not so important. 

Then there is e.g. Smollett who often lets his readers wade through
meticulously detailed places. These descriptions have usually little 
or nothing to do with the actions of characters. (Btw, funnily, the
"expedition" route in _Humphrey Clinker_ passes through both Gloucester
and Durham.)

In Pynchon the intensely accurate feeling of place is not detached from 
characters' actions. Yet places are not fully integrated in actions, 
either -- partly because they never stop being mysterious. They haunt.


Heikki