grgr (28): cosmic windmill mandala (--- "graphicity" in pynchon's prose)

[Mark Wright AIA]

Howdy

I can think of a few other writers from the 60's and 70's who were
using graphics within (rather than to illustrate) a text.  An easy one:
Vonnegut in "Breakfast of Champions", filled with simple drawings and
doodles of the toilet-stall style, making BoC a "novel of ideas" (sort
of) in an exagerated populist mode.  Another easy one: some of Donald
Barthelme's short stories, for instance "At The Tolstoy Museum" from
the "City Life" collection.  Perhaps in his case the "language as
medium (subverted)" game is played.  Some of our lit-crit members might
want to elaborate.  Both examples are "sixties" in flavor, as are V,
CoL49, GR.

Do other, better examples come to mind?

Mark

--- Lorentzen / Nicklaus <lorentzen-nicklaus at t-online.de> wrote:
> 
>  this cosmic windmill mandala (- & once more there is jungian
> "quadricity")on  
>  page 624 made me think of the function of "graphicity" [?] in
> pynchon's work. 
> 
>  in v we have all the vs in the chapter headlines, the kilroy (436)
> and the 
>  hands (471f.).
> 
>  in col49 there is on page 34 the posthorn (- "a loop, triangle and
> trapezoid") 
>  that reappears on page 58.
> 
>  in gr we find the "celluloid margins" in between the chapters, the
> emblem of 
>  the schwarzkommando on page 361, the houseboat formula on page 450
> and, 
>  eventually, the mandala sign, which initiated this whole thought of
> mine.     
> 
>  in vineland and m&d there are no graphical signs. why?
> 
>  and: what is the function of "graphicity" in trp's early novels? is
> is there 
>  just to relax our paranoid eyes? (this can never be wrong ...) does
> it suggest 
>  that language is "only" a medium? did pynchon want to connect
> himself with the 
>  popular visual arts? (is there a secret collage book version of gr?
> i'd kill to 
>  get it ...)or is it just a 60s thing one cannot understand anymore
> today? 
> 
>  sagt ein bild mehr als tausend worte?! kai frederik lorentzen  
> 


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