architecture

[Doug Millison]

Tristram Shandy's My Uncle Toby's earthworks and recreations of the 
battles of Europe might fit somewhere in this discussion. And, 
Borges's ruminations on map and territory.  I've yet to tackle  the 
beautiful new volume of Walter Benjamin's _The Arcades Project_ I 
bought myself as a birthday present, but I know he's got a lot to say 
in this regard, as well.

Seems to me that Pynchon pays a lot of attention to architecture in 
GR -- the Herero village, the Raketen-Stadt, the Mittelwerke, the 
historical details of particular buildings and cities, etc. As he 
does in V. and COL49, and again in Vineland and M&D.  I especially 
like all those buildings and vehicles that are so much bigger on the 
inside than they look from the outside in M&D. The way the 
perspective of the town (where the Thanatoids live) flip-flops in 
Vineland is pretty interesting, too, and as some readers have noted, 
this leads into a rather complex mathematical discussion (we 
discussed it at some length during VLVL, I believe).

Vaska's article in the current Pynchon Notes, "The City, the 
Labyrinth and the Terror Beyond:  Delineating a Site of the Possible 
in Gravity's Rainbow," may shine some light on some of these issues. 
Her thought-provoking article  begins: "London, Berlin, Buenos Aires: 
these are only some of the Cities Imperial in Gravity's Rainbow, a 
novel in which historical fact mingles with artifacts of myth, and 
the fictionalized landscape of the Second World War, the novel's 
Zone, accomodates both the green world of Slothrop's rainbow vision 
and the socially engineered, sinister enclaves of preserved 
innocence."  She goes on to discuss "Pynchon's mature attempt to 
connect the various dialectics and myths of the urban."

Highly recommended.

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