Homage and Imposture

[jbor]

It can serve to enrich an author's work, however -- think of the way Borges
manipulates such visitations and return visits, for example. It's only a
little step away from having real historical figures populate the fiction,
or anachronistic assemblies of real and (your own and/or others') fictional
characters together in the one text, or the author-as-character thing.
McHale does a good commentary on it in *Constructing Postmodernism*. I agree
about DFW I suppose, but if stylistic parody is a problem then that pastiche
of Jacobean revenge drama in *Lot49* and the whole of *M&D* are on the line
too. And Rushdie's nod -- well, what of Pynchon's nod to Ishmael Reed,
though I agree that there is a difference between the two (Reed languishing
in somewhat more obscurity at the time of Pynchon's nod than vice versa with
Rushdie's).

Marc Chenetier, in his very good overview of American fiction since 1950
entitled *Beyond Suspicion*, also comments on the resonances of Hawkes' *The
Cannibal* in *GR*.

best


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>From: "Richard Romeo" <richardromeo at hotmail.com>
>

> what I find sad is that such references to other fictional characters in a
> another work of fiction tends to limit the work's depth and resonance, in
> some cases. Literaure today has expanded to include non-literary subjects.
> One could say folks like Joyce did it all the time, but many of his
> allusions and such are to works that are very old--Dante, Shakespeare, etc.
> Now, writers of today, I'm think DFW in this case, are trying to put the
> literary cat back in the bag, referencing in albeit clever ways, Gaddis,
> Pynchon, etc.  But his non-literary allusions are just digs at other's
> better use of scientific or political metaphor.  Re-reading DeLillo's End
> Zone covers in 250 pgs much of the overworked nonsense in IJ.  Not to blame
> DFW for all these things, I'm thinking Rushdie's use of the Lot49 allusion
> seems particualrly lame to me, and the knowing wink from the reader only
> highlights the underlying neglible effect of such an allusion. I prefer my
> lit taken from the life outside the english dept and into that shout in the
> street that Stephen D. would note as "God."
>
> P.S.  Reading Hawkes' The Cannibal--his dense, visual descriptions of
> Germany in 1945 is very reminiscent of the Zone--of course, Hawkes' book was
> released in the late 40s--if anything, it may have given TRP some pointers
> on style...fwiw