GOD MODE

[Shirley Lim]

In response to the notion that M&D is an old guy on a nostalgia trip:

	The more I read Pynchon, the more I realize that all the things
cited ("Ancestors to beloved characters like Pig Bodine and Ronald
Cherrycoke, another lame integral joke, drugs, talking animals, Vineland
the Good, farinaceously, grotesque medical exhibits, drugs, lots of
aarrgh's, parabolas, v's, groovy mysticism, mysterious symbols, drugs,
Anubis-style decadence, Mutt-and-Mutter-type buddies, the usual poems and
songs.") are far less the *ends* towards which Pynchon is working than
they are building blocks with which he crafts his books. I could no more
criticize TRP for using a song as I could for using words, or chapters. As
far as the ancestors go, I think that the intertextuality within P's own
body of work adds to it. Bodine, after all, has always been a P-man
staple. A-and now, when TRP wants to evoke a certain type of sailor in
M&D, he merely needs to name that character Bodine. If anything, it adds
depth to his minor characters. And Vs are really just another
representation of binary interactions, and TRP is certainly not the first
nor last author to deal with those.
	Enough point by point! Suffice it to say that Pynchon staples are
like food staples: no one complains when they have to eat starch at every
meal. If they were always used to the same effect, there might be a valid
criticism, but when they manage to accomplish something different on each
occasion, who can complain?

	Gershom Bazerman(from the wrong address, and thinking "Not me!")