Pynchon / Tournier nexus etc.

[Samuel Moyer]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kris Majer" <stonk at priv.onet.pl>

>
> As I said earlier, I'm about two-thirds through Gravity's Rainbow and I'm
> often reminded of Michel Tournier's "The Ogre": the way the Hansel and
> Gretel game is used for ritualization, the witch / werewolf motive
> (Blicero), Pokler's realizing that he had been serving death is not unlike
> Abel Tiffauges'... It's been some time since I read Tournier, so I might
> have mixed things up a bit here. Hopefully not, though. Is anyone familiar
> with "The Ogre"?

I have only just read Gravity's Rainbow for the first time and I was struck
by how much it reminded me of Rabelais, which I haven't read in six years.
Before typing this I thought I would look into the archives and sure enough
I am not alone.  28 mentions of Rabelais, including several in October 2000,
90 days before I joined the list.  Doug Millison wrote this:

"_Gravity's Rainbow_  is an _encyclopedic narrative_, and its
companions in this most exclusive of literary categories are Dante's
_Commedia_, Rabelais's five books of Gargantua and Pantagruel,
Cervantes's _Don Quixote_, Goete's _Faust_, Melville's _Moby Dick_,
and Joyce's _Ulysses_. "

This is probably a good list - I haven't read Faust or Ulysses but I
certainly think that Pynchon relied heavily on both Rabelais and Melville.

Sam