M&D Review in Sunday Times

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

still lookin writes:
> On 6 May 1997, Tiarnan O'Corrain wrote:
> > The Sunday Times, cheerleading for the middlebrow
> > middleEnglanders, published quite a hostile review(by Humphrey=20
> > Carpenter) of M&D last Sunday. This (in my book) counts as
> > a plus for the novel.
> >=20
> > Last two paras:
> > 	'Perversely, slavery, of which the Line became a symbol, is
> > only treated in a sideways fashion by Pynchon.=20

> Sideways?  I'd say it's all over the place.  What Mr. Reviewer wants, I
> suppose, is a melodramatic scene where we see the cruel mistreatment of
> slaves, and M's & D's noble emotions are offended, and they heroically
> intervene, or something.  Or maybe just large capital letters that
> say SLAVERY BAD, FREEDOM GOOD?

Well, while we are on the subject maybe I should mention one of the
most striking such passages encountered in my reading so far. And in
case anyone does not want to hear what happens in the first 60 pages I
hereby give notice . . .











Ok, still here? It's the scene shortly after M & D arrive in Cape Town
where Pynchon reports on the prevalence of ghosts, whose putative(?)
presence he contends any good rationalist would explain as indicating
nothing more than the presence of an unresolved grudge. Seems Cape
Town is overpopulated with such nighttime presences to the extent that
the Whites are committing suicide as fast as their black slaves, what
with the force of division between black and white it seems that the
attendant spirits (real or imagined, they attend - boy do they attend)
said spirits have the Dutch dancing at the end of their tether, as
`twere. In just one or two paragraphs Pynchon presents precise and
subtle insights into the corrupt and corrosive nature of slavery. Any
reviewer who could regard such direct and forceful commentary as a
`sideline' must be blind, stupid, careless or some combination of the
three.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.