Pynchon's rap

[Doug Millison]

Since the major parallel that Pynchon sets up throughout M&D is 1760s 
(the period that encompasses the bulk of the novel's action)/1960s 
(the period of the youth and larger counter-culture rebellion to 
which P does in fact allude so often throughout the novel), I think 
it's a stretch to call this a reference to rap music, which is not a 
60s phenomenon. Isn't the South Philly sound an offshoot of Motor 
City R&B anyway? Rappers don't  sing, so P's reference here to 
"Tenors" makes this passage even less likely to refer to rap music. 
"Tenors" make the NSync and BackStreet Boys sound, too -- maybe 
that's what P is referring to here?

If you want to step back now and call this M&D passage an "indirect 
reference" to rap music that's fine, although I think such an 
assertion is lamely supported and wide of the mark -- but we've 
already agreed that there's no end to the number of signifers you can 
create based on Pynchon's actual text in your process of interpreting 
it.   I still think it's pretty funny to see "jbor"  reach so far to 
create a reference  to rap music in M&D after watching this person 
jump and shout and struggle for months against the notion that 
Pynchon directly addresses the Holocaust in GR, a novel which, as 
quite a few P-listers demonstrated in the GRGR discussion, is riddled 
with direct references to the Holocaust and Nazi and which in fact 
incorporates the Holocaust in a major subplot. And "jbor" has the 
nerve to criticize Hollander for tracking down Pynchon's political, 
historical, and artistic allusions in his interpretations!


"jbor"
  "South Philadelphia  Ballad-singers"on page 264 of the text of M&D 
is a reference (direct or indirect -- that's not really the issue, of 
course) to modern rappers? As Ethelmer  describes them, they are 
"generally Tenors, who are said, in their Succession, to constitute a 
Chapter in the Secret History of a Musick yet to be, if
not the Modal change Plato fear'd, then one he did not foresee."

The more general point you make below --  "Negroe Musick" is a direct 
reference, isn't it -- isn't far off the mark, although I'm not sure 
you find too many African-American performers playing "Surf Music," 
in any decade, and Pynchon clearly knows that all American musical 
forms are shaped by African and African-American influences, not just 
in the 1960s counter-culture movement:  see GR and the prominence of 
jazz therein.

"jbor":
"this exchange between the family members Pynchon intimates that "the 
Negroe Musick" has pre-empted the whole array of modern popular music 
styles: ballads, folk songs,  rock and roll, "Surf Music", reggae, 
even New Romantic.
-- 
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