Writing Theory

[Doug Millison]

I don't know about a formal theory to explain this, but your observation
("that novelists write 'pre-writes' in the form of smaller novels before
their bigger works, i.e. no V. without the story from Slow Learner, no GR
without TCOL49, no MandD without Vineland. It's as though P writes an
introduction or outline for what he wishes to write later, and it still
gets published") reminds me of my personal theory that Pynchon is writing
one big novel, or, at the very least, is engaged in an ongoing project in
which he addresses similar themes and sometimes similar material in his
books (although I think his canon is more tightly connected and integrated
than that).  Sketchy biographical info tells us that Pynchon was working on
four big novels (I think that's the number I remember from the letter to
his agent that surfaced in the letters that were sold to the Pierpont
Morgan Library) in the '60s, which could have been V., GR, Vineland, and
M&D, or perhaps some other grouping of works both published and
unpublished. Given the number of specific intertextual references in his
stories and novels, the appearance of characters from earlier works in
later works, and the continuity in the material he uses to build his
novels, I don't think it's an unreasonable conclusion to view the books as
one big novel. Your mileage may vary, of course.


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