The Quest and the Grail (or Logocentrism)

[Paul Mackin]

On Sun, 18 Jun 2000, Terrance wrote:

> 
> If Pynchon's attack is directed at Calvinistic Determinism,
> if
> in his fiction all  the manifesting of destiny and killing
> and repression can be laid at the feet of European
> Christians and those that despise the earth and people of
> color in HIS name, what has Pynchon to say that makes his
> novels any more worthy of study than a thousand commonwealth
> or post colonial writers that make such claims? Is it true
> what some say of
> Pynchon? What he has to say is less important than how? Or
> as James Wood has claimed, Pynchon's fiction calls attention
> ONLY to itself? 

Sounds like there might be an application of "the medium is the
message" here. Television told much the same old stories as radio and
print before it. But the effects on culture were not the same old same
old, or at least McLuhan would have us so believe. Of course Pynchon is an
encyclopedic source of straight information and even McL would not deny
content is important. But the special manner in which the content is
delivered is why we're here. So what is that special ingredient? Is there
some patented brand of Pynchonian irony and Tomfoolery that changes us
in some quantifiable way, that is actually bringing about some
emerging zeitgeist of the age? Well, that's probably overstateing it, but 
still. I don't have any answer, just the question.

			P.