Pynchon and Gaddis

[Otto]

Robert:
>
> > It's interesting that William Gaddis's early (unpublished) play _Once at
> > Antietam_, long excerpts from the original script of which crop up as a
> > play written by one of the characters in his 1994 novel _A Frolic of His
> > Own_ likewise "brings up this whole question of wage slaves in the
> > North" (_A Frolic of His Own_ 107) being the equivalent of Negro
> > slaves in the South.
> > It's quite a radical proposition, but one which neither text is
> > dismissing lightly. I think this sort of revisionism of the conventional
< > revisionist posture which we see in both texts is quite radical and
ground-breaking.
> > And I do believe that there's a real affinity between Gaddis's and
Pynchon's
> > work in general, whether conscious or not.
>
> > best
>

I wrote:
Yeah, you know that I love  _A Frolic of His Own_ especially partly because
of this play written into the text. On the Rasterfahndung-CD Gaddis offers
the opinion that they both have read very little of each other:

"I haven't read . . . I think he and I read very little of each others work
and I would doubt (...) he seems very sui generis, very, he does what he
wants to (...) and we both I think stumbled on this, suddenly absurd, this
notion of entropy."
(track 11, 02:30--03.12)

Well, if he has read only little of Pynchon how does he know if Pynchon
hasn't read more of him?
-------------------------------------------

Let me add:
I think both novels add to a greater picture of the early USA. One more
concerned with the Revolution, one with the Civil War. And both are
discussing questions of the legal system.

Otto


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