The Art of Excess

[Paul Mackin]

On Sat, 2002-12-21 at 20:12, Dave Monroe wrote:
> >From Tom LeClair, The Art of Excess: Mastery in
> Contemporary American Fiction (Urbana: U of Illinois
> P, 1989), Ch. 2, "Prologue: Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's
> Rainbow," pp. 36-68 ...


  I believe ... that Pynchon's
> aesthetic deformations have a triple effect: 1) they
> overload and thus deconstruct the codes and ideology
> of realist fiction; 2) they reconstruct an imitative
> form that implies the reciprocal plenitude posited by
> systems science; and 3) they both alienate and solicit
> readers who live in the age of information to which
> Newman cannot adjust." (p. 38)

The Pyncher taketh away and the Pyncher re-giveths, to us info-agers.

Both at the same time.

And even poor Newman loves it.

P.