Thoroughly postmodern Pynchon

[Doug Millison]

Pynchon does describe all sorts of things in V. and his other writings, but
he uses words to do it, not drawings, traffic lights, body language, or
other non-verbal means, so I don't really follow the connection that's being
made here.  And each of P's books, essays, etc. contains only a finite
number of words. If this is supposed to mean that Pynchon's words in turn
somehow lead on to other words outside of his books, that seems pretty
obvious and not terribly interesting, unless there's some further more to be
said about it.


original message:
    Signifiers needn't be confined to words; they can include any
    system of representation, including drawings, traffic lights, body
    language, and so on.

http://www.andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Terms/signifier.html

So with "V" in Pynchon's novel:

       As spread thighs are to the libertine, flights of migratory birds to
    the ornithologist, the working part of his tool bit to the production
    machinist, so was the letter V to young Stencil. (61)

    V. by this time was a remarkably scattered concept. (389.6)

And so on. Which is Collado-Rodrigueza's comment in his very astute essay:

    ... the story, whose main
    aim is the quest for the lady V., finally dissolves in a never-ending
    chain of signifiers that always escapes an ultimate categorical meaning.

http://www.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/okla/collado24.htm

best