Thoroughly postmodern Pynchon

[Terrance]

Doug Millison wrote:
> 
> Including a picture as a "signifier" in novel, sure. I think even Pynchon
> would be hard pressed to write a novel with smoke signals. I don't see how
> any of this particular discussion adds greatly to understanding Pynchon's
> novels.  The signifier/signified discussion did sound exciting to me when I
> first encountered it back in the 70s, until some of the professors I studied
> with told me that it didn't matter what text you take, Proust or Pynchon or
> the back of a breakfast cereal box, what counts is the critic's response. I
> admit that took a bit of the zest out of it for me.

Well, I think that all the contemporary approaches to
literature have some value. All of them have the potential
to enrich rather than drain the wonderful experience we all
know literature can afford. But here on Pynchon-L, be it
Structuralism, Formalism, Marxism, Psychoanalytic criticism
(Lacan, Freud, Jung), Feminism, Deconstructionism,
approaches to literature,  are often misapplied by their
proponents and practitioners. Some here assume that you
would "get it" if only you would read such and such, others
don't seem to "get it" themselves, but this doesn't stop
them. First, if you are interested, you have the learn the
language, the jargon, the terms, the turns, the movements,
the majors and even some of the minors, or at least their
major contribution. 
If you have not been attending seminars and reading up on
it, you are like a man that has just been hired as an
apprentice Iron Worker, you show up to work and they tell
you that they are re-stringing a bridge. WOW! In three days
you will discover what stringing a bridge is. In three years
you will be doing it.