discussion deconstructed

[Doug Millison]

I'm not "opposing" a PoMo approach to literary criticism. If PoMo concepts
are used to make an original argument, take the discussion of Pynchon's work
in a new direction, illuminate some aspect of it in a way that hasn't been
done before -- I welcome that; Pynchon Notes, my favorite magazine,
publishes thought-provoking articles that use contemporary literary-critical
approaches to explore Pynchon's work in new ways. I just don't see "jbor's"
point in applying his own stale PoMo regurgitate to Pynchon's work -- string
together a bunch of tired lit-crit cliches and make some pompous-sounding
conclusions about Pynchon's novels in the abstract, so what?   If "jbor"
wants to make Blicero the tragic hero of GR, he/she's welcome to do so; I
agree with Swing, it's a terrible misreading, since you have to ignore or
rewrite so much of what Pynchon has written in the novel in order to make
the case for such a reading, but because it's so weak it doesn't really add
up to much but wishful thinking anyway, sort of cute, really, in a
sophomoric way. "jbor's" approach here is the cafeteria style of Biblical
exegesis, take what you want, leave the rest -- quote a bit here and there,
string citations out of context, ignore huge portions and hope nobody
notices, then make your case and loudly damn all who would disagree.

I do have a hard time taking seriously a school of thought which declares
that there are no universal truths, no facts only interpretations, and in
the same self-cancelling breath sets itself up as the truth. But that's
another subject entirely.