[3] Trying Crying

[Craig Clark]

Jumping into the debate between John and Andrew...

John:
  > A couple of points:
  >  (A) I questioned your claim that CL49 is a *pastiche* of a detective story. Noting that the 
  > word means either (1) an imitation or parody, or (2) a hodge-podge,  I asked what sense 
  > you implied, and you snorted back--

Andrew:
  > In sense (1). If it deosn't make any sense I don't knwo what else to
  > try. Anyone speak Pomeranian?

John: 
  > Here you are simply wrong, in English.  There is no attempt in CL49 to parody a detective 
  > story.  Just because there's a mystery doesn't mean it's a parody.Nor is parody of detective 
  > story implied just because there is a quest, a search--after all, your favorite reference point 
  > (besides LudWitt) is that arch-quester the Don of La Mancha.  Would you say the Quixote 
  > is a *pastiche* of a detective story?  The Firesign Theater's NICK DANGER is a pastiche of 
  > a detective story.  Do you understand the difference?

The debate here is about parody vs pastiche, and what one means by 
each term. I've always operated on the principle that pastiche is an 
exercise in homage, whereas parody is mocking or satirical in intent 
(I stand to be corrected). Having said that, Oedipa's tale is (in 
these terms) parody rather than pastiche: it parodies the entire Southern 
California detective tale genre, Hammett and Chandler and Gardner and 
all their ilk (and there are a few direct allusions in the text to 
support this). It's also a parody of a school of thinking about 
literary texts that makes odd statements like "Oedipus is the first 
detective in Western literature" or one which I made once in a paper 
on Shakespeare, "Hamlet's task is to walk the mean streets of 
Elsinore looking for the truth". That is to say Pynchon is parodying 
those who conflate a quest with an exercise in detection.


Craig Clark

"Living inside the system is like driving across
 the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
 on suicide."
   - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"