Sure sign of madness, wasRE: globalization & Pynchon?

[jbor]

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>From: calbert at tiac.net
>

> Any suggestions as to why Ayn Rand do so - what purpose do these
> passages serve in her works? Is there yet another layer to the
> Pynchon reference (as if that ever happens)?....

Definitely. Rand's use of the technique is merely rhetorical; Pynchon's is
thematic, as you've noted.

See also _Atlas Shrugged_ p. 566:

      It is said that catastrophes are a matter of pure chance, and there
    are those who would have said that the passengers of the Comet
    were not guilty or responsible for the thing that happened to them.

Then she goes on to list about 15 or so passengers (in much the same format
as that "dog days" passage in _V._) who are all somehow implicated in the
collapse of industrial capitalism depicted, eg.:

      The man in Roomette 3, Car No. 11, was a sniveling little neurotic
    who wrote cheap little plays into which, as a social message, he
    inserted cowardly little obscenities to the effect that all business-
    men were scoundrels. (567)

Of course, the train crashes into the tunnel because of the shoddy work on
the construction of the line and all these people are killed. Ironic or
what?

best