GRGR(30): You will want cause and effect.

[Michel Ryckx]

Paul Mackin wrote:
(...)
"So here's my question: Is GR ever boring enough to be postmodernist. I'll
admit it may be tedious, and fatiguing, and incomprehensible. But are there
ever passages in the book that could be thought of as a downright assault on
the reader? I don't think I experience it that way, at least not enough of the
time to matter. I don't throw these two points out with the expectation that
they could be in any way decisive. Just interesting points." (...)

Since a few days now the air is filled with very interesting ideas on
architecture, literature etc.  A word comes popping up all the time: post
modernism.  I've really read and reread all these posts, but, alas, the longer
one discusses the object, the vaguer it becomes -to me, at least.  Even those
who tend to regard it sympathetically do not seem to agree on the meaning of
it. Is it a kind of philosophy or a category, a genre, a style? In what way is
' pomo literature' related to 'pomo architecture' and other pomo's?  Does it
still exist or is it considered to have been the fashion of certain period?
Is it (horresco referens) 'transhistorical'?

The useless (in the sense: it will not affect my daily life) questions tend to
lead to interesting answers.  But my brain seems to like it.  I look at
philosophy not as a science, but as an attitude: to be critical and not to
accept what seems to be.

I cannot think of an answer to your question, Paul.  But I know GR (and mr.
Pynchon's other works as well) is a mystery in the most literal sense of the
word: one can look at it, but one will never be able to grasp it completely.

As for 'You will want...', I see it as: you, reader, want real stories? Here
they are.  Then follows a story.

Nowhere in GR I found an assault on the reader. I just saw myself, a reader
challenged.

Kind regards,
Michel.