What is Pynchonian?

[Paul Mackin]

What about that little trick he has of doing a special "take" on some relatively learned body of knowledge, some aspect, say, of physics, biology, linguistics, religion, etc., so, that no matter how more-or-less outlandish things get, you still know he has real working knowledge of what he is riffing on? And you can enjoy a human face being put on cold abstract science, or whatever it is. Plus there is a tremendous pleasure bestowed thereby on the reader, knowing exactly where it's all coming from, being in on a joint venture of a sort. Well, more-or-less being in on it. People's knowledge bases don't overlap precisely. But anyway do other writers do this? Well, obviously all writing depends to a considerable extent on the reader having a context for it but it's rarely to the extent it is in Pynchon.

For example,
sound shadows
psychological conditioning
statistics
technology of planned obsolence or whatever Bryon the Bulb is
neuron migration to the periphery
predestination
what have you.

			P.