M&D reviewed in NYRB

[Paul Murphy]

Louis Menand reviews M&D in the June 12 issue of The New York Review of
Books. The review, entitled "Entropology", does a good job of situating M&D
in TRP's oeuvre, discusses TRP's style as an amalgam of Kerouac and the
Cornell English department, gives a rather exhaustive (and spoiler-filled)
summary of the plot, and takes a stab at what the book 'means'. Menand
revisits the concept of entropy, by anchoring his interpretation in a quote
from Levi-Strauss' _Tristes Tropiques_, in which the formation of
civilization is described as an entropic process. The review concludes: "By
appropriating the loose and baggy forms of Sterne and Swift, Pynchon has
found an ideal vehicle for his meditation on the worlds that were lost, and
the suffering that was caused, just so people could understand one another
better. He has produced a work of cultural anthropology, a _Tristes
Tropiques_ of North American civilization, and an astonishing and wonderful
book."

Cheers,
Paul