Idolatry (Minus Spoilers)

[Andrew Clarke Walser]

On Tuesday, 13 May 1997, the Robot Vegetable wrote:

 	I would argue that (Pynchon) has consciously rejected the idea that
       there is "a potentially valuable realism" which can be precisely 
       told.

Yes -- Pynchon certainly has no use for cycloptic truths about history.
Perhaps he forgoes "realism" because that device flatters conventional
perceptions; it perpetuates the notion that the reader's subjectivity is
objective.  

As Tom Stanton says, Pynchon USES history:  he does not adopt the
journalist's deference to FACTS.  When German rockets serve his purpose,
he will employ German rockets -- but if Byron the Bulb works better, he
picks the bulb. 

Perhaps Pynchon would dispute the very notion of a Mason-Dixon line
between the artistic and the journalistic, the literary and the
historical . . .

				Andrew Walser
			   University of Illinois-Chicago