correcting typo RE: col49 2 pt2

[Tim Strzechowski]

But does Pynchon write for his readers?  Does someone like Pynchon care
if his topic of fiction has a broad appeal?  Of course not, David.  I
think Pynchon "expected" some readers to get it, but figured most
readers wouldn't. And the popularity of V. undoubtedly gave him enough
literary status to get the necessary backing from a magazine.


David Morris wrote:

> Here's a question:  If the existence of LSD was not relatively common
> knowledge at the time, then how could Pynchon (or the magazine editors) have
> expected the readers to have any idea what this reference to LSD meant?
>
> >From: "John Bailey" Has anybody ever come across the excerpts from the
> >novel which appeared in magazines?
>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
>
>    ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject: Re: correcting typo RE: col49 2 pt2
> Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 11:19:36 +1000
> From: "John Bailey" <johnbonbailey at hotmail.com>
> To: jbor at bigpond.com, pynchon-l at waste.org
> Has anybody ever come across the excerpts from the novel which
> appeared in magazines? Were they excerpts or self-contained pieces (a
> la Under the Rose) which were rejigged to be worked into COL49. I just
> can't imagine The Shrink Flips as a particularly engaging short story
> if it was intended to be read as a stand-alone (assuming it maintains
> a fair degree of faithfulness to that chapter in the novel).
>
> Also, to expand upon Oedipa's horse metaphor mentioned earlier, her
> whole experience of the freeway system is prescient of the kind of
> writing done on freeways by later academics. The best (and classic)
> article on this is
>
> Morse, Margaret: An Ontology of Everyday Distraction: The Freeway, the
> Mall and Television. Patricia Mellencamp (ed.), Logics of Television.
> Indiana University Press 1990.
>
> Which does some very appropriate comparison work between, that's
> right, the Freeway, the Mall and Television, all of which get some
> nice treatment in TRP's bits and pieces. I'm reminded of the fantastic
> section near the end of Vineland we read of a black-clad and
> be-rollerskated Prairie and gang of teen cohorts staging a high-action
> raid on a mall.
>
> Anyway, Morse's argument is that all three situations create a kind of
> 'non-space' or 'de-realised space', particular to postmodernity in the
> West (and the US especially)...San Narciso it would seem is a huge
> expanse of non-space (if that's not a contradiction) where all of
> Oedipa's relationships are more virtual than real.
>
> Also, how much of Oedipa's inability to connect with anything in San
> Narciso is Modernist remnant re: alienation. I don't think that the
> sense of wandering around in a wasteland began in 1965. I'd argue that
> lots of common folk knew about it. But I haven't got any facts to
> prove it.
>  >From: jbor
> >To:
> >Subject: Re: correcting typo RE: col49 2 pt2
> >Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2001 08:31:15 +1000
> >
> >Actually, excerpts from the novel were published in _Esquire_,in
> December
> >1965, and _Cavalier_ in March 1966. I suspect that the latter excerpt
> at
> >least, entitled 'The Shrink Flips', includes the LSD references which
> are in
> >the novel. Of course, as many have been pointing out, the use of LSD
> and
> >other hallucinogens in a range of contexts, including psychotherapy
> and
> >experimental medical research (on housewives, among a cross-section
> of other
> >subjects, I would assume), was widespread in the U.S. during the
> early 60s,
> >and much had already been written about it, in fiction and
> non-fiction works
> >with which Pynchon would have been quite familiar.
> >
> >John's point about Oedipa using the heroin metaphor (16), is more
> >interesting to ponder. Oedipa had been to college, perceives herself
> as
> >well-informed and somewhat "hip", or post-hip at least, I think. I
> wonder
> >when the use of the word "horse" for heroin originated? What's
> striking to
> >me is Oedipa's (and the narrator's?) apparent ambivalence towards
> heroin and
> >heroin addiction. The way the image is generated is just so mundane
> and
> >matter-of-fact, but what it points to is the way that the modern --
> or
> >*postmodern* -- urban landscape is like some surreal or nightmarish
> >apparition.
> >
> >best
> >
> >
> >on 8/8/01 2:57 AM, Doug Millison at DMillison at ftmg.net wrote:
> >
> > > My typographical error in the previous message. COL49 was
> published in May
> > > 1967, still in advance of the Summer of Love that brought the
> hippies and
> > > LSD international publicity and catapulted them out of their
> fringe
> > > sub-culture status.
> >
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com