MDDM World-as-text

[John Bailey]

M&D is a text. It makes one aware of this pretty often. It also makes one 
aware of when it was written.

I won't say it's self-aware. I don't like that term, as it gives too much 
agency to a text. It's hard enough to say that people are self-aware.

But it draws attention to the particular historical circumstance in which it 
was written, which have been characterised as postmodern. I'm not talking 
about the same Postmodernism which is often confused with Modernism. 
'Self-awareness' can often be attributed to Modernist texts, and plenty 
pre-Modernism. But we do live in a certain time, which is in some ways 
different from other times, which I think of as postmodern. The word 
contains another word, modern, and so does the time.

If you're talking about Postmodernism, then I won't get involved because 
no-one can agree just what is constituted by this term, especially when it 
is applied in an art-literature sense. But talking about postmodernity, I'm 
OK with. A certain historical period, in which all of P's works can be 
located, and they couldn't have been written in any other.

Of course, postmodernism will problematise my historicising but I'll indulge 
the poor dear.

Postmodernism being, after all, a text, as well.

But I was saying: M&D is a text. I think Pynchon, pomo or pomp or poop or 
whatever, wants to make us think about texts, 'representation' (plenty on 
that in M&D) etc and doesn't believe that a novel can give a direct 
experience of reality (except the reality of reading, which can be quite 
physical in his novels) but he knows that the medium, the translation, the 
projection of his ideas is open to interpretation and so he plays some 
games, makes us think or covers his tracks, depending on your viewpoint. If 
you want an author who thinks he can access that truth, that 'real' world, 
look elsewhere, read Lawrence or someone, but steer clear of Pynchon, coy 
fella as he is, except for the curiously direct sentimentality of the later 
parts of M&D, and some great sections of VL. Post-irony...

Of course, if someone can disprove the world-as-text thesis, they're welcome 
to post it, and they might find themselves in P's position.

This list is all text, too.

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