Those little black squares

[Terrance]

GR has seven of those little squares at the beginning of
each episode  and Mao II has three little black squares on
the top of page 87, 165, 184, 238. Did I get them all? 

What's going on? 

"Bill has the idea that writers are being consumed by the
emergence of news as an apocalyptic force."   

Don't be so paranoid, Bill.


While it would be a distortion to say that the rise of the
        movies as a parallel and competing art form has been
the
        cause, the signature effects of postmodern fiction
--
        recursive language games; self-conscious, unreliable
and
        multiple narrative voices; Möbius-strip skeins of
allusion and
        parody, sincerity and irony -- seem almost flagrant
in their
        defiance of cinematic appropriation. 

        The giants of postmodernism -- William Gaddis,
Thomas
        Pynchon, Don DeLillo -- have erected pyramids of
prose so
        intricate in their conceits and so saturated with
references as
        to defy replication altogether. Their most
recognizable
        progeny carry on this resistance. Can you picture
the 1,100
        pages of David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest,"
with its 400
        footnotes and uncountable subplots, on the screen? 


http://www.nytimes.com/library/film/061600film-from-books.html