What is Pynchonian?

[Paul Mackin]

>From Monte:
PS -- "A real working knowledge" can cover a multitude of inadequacies --
for teachers, science writers, and TRP. Things that he and others have
written assure me that sometimes he skims the cream of a topic, and
tap-dances from fact to fact so well that he *gives the impression* of more
knowledge than he in fact has. 

>>>That was pretty much the sense I intended "a real working knowledge" to convey. Was thinking of how I might dare apply "working knowledge" to  myself, say, on a job application. So, if the topic in question comes up in an interview, and the interviewer is a lot more knowledgeable about it than I,  there won't be too great a danger I'll make a complete fool of myself. Same with Pynchon. A number of his readers will know more about this or that than he does, but they will pass through the experience without in any way feeling that he has overstepped his competence for purposes of this one particular literary transaction. (At least I feel this will generally be true.)

But as you indicate the writer has to play it both ways. For a guy who has said he doesn't want to make things too easy Pynchon does manage to be quite helpful at times. Like providing enough information in an adjacent paragraph, say, so the meaning of some nonenglish reference will be reasonably clear.
Kinds of information of that sort, which can be worked in without being too awkward or condescending about it. There are of course limits to how much you can do. Don't want to put in a footnote saying who Maxwell was.  In the case of a writer as rewarding as Pynch, it is worthwhile for the reader to go to the encyclopedia now and then.

					P.


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From: 	Monte Davis[SMTP:modavis at bellatlantic.net]
Sent: 	Friday, March 28, 1997 2:43 PM
To: 	Paul Mackin; 'pynchon-l at waste.org'
Subject: 	Re: What is Pynchonian?

You addressed well the stylistic effects he achieves with those riffs on
more or less technical arcana. I'd just add that as a science teacher for a
short time, then a science writer for a long time, I'm always conscious of
the structural challenges and doubts about context they entail:

Do I stop here and do a mini-riff on DNA vs. RNA? or should I go back and
spread it in bits and pieces in the earlier exposition?

How many readers know who James Clark Maxwell was? and if I mention "ether"
getting from him to FitzGerald or Einstein, how many have a feel for the
different kind of fiction it represented to each of them?

How long will they remember which was von Braun and which was Dornberger?
How smoothly can I embed a hint to remind 'em?

 etc, etc, etc... see Richard Rhodes' excellent new "Deadly Feasts" (on
kuru, scrapie, "mad cow disease," etc.) for how slickly it can be done in
non-fiction. 

At a nuts 'n bolts level apart from the Big Literary Picture, TRP is very,
very good at this. He does assume a depth and intensity of reader interest
any science teacher or writer would yearn for, but given that, he plays
scrupulously fair with "what you need to know to make sense of B and
connect it to A". And, of course,  he writes so damn well that he earns
that depth and intensity from anyone less brain-damaged than, say, a
book-award judge.

-Monte

PS -- "A real working knowledge" can cover a multitude of inadequacies --
for teachers, science writers, and TRP. Things that he and others have
written assure me that sometimes he skims the cream of a topic, and
tap-dances from fact to fact so well that he *gives the impression* of more
knowledge than he in fact has. But that's a perfectly legitimate artistic
move in itself, like the Hitchcock "profile" caricature that somehow
summons up the man in a curve and a squiggle.