re Re: Pynchon's reconciliation of apparent opposites WAS Dixon's

[Doug Millison]

Thomas,

Just curious -- really -- but if you write "punches" where Pynchon wrote
"places his Fist", how is somebody to understand that you are not rewriting
what Pynchon wrote?  You are substituting your verb for Pynchon's, after
all.

Perhaps all interpretation amounts to a rewriting of the interpreted text.
But, surely we can decide which interpretations we like best, based on how
well they seem to illuminate the text in question.

You may not have seen it, but there's a religious program that I've seen
bits and pieces of on late night TV, some cult group, the leader, Yahweh
bin Yahweh was recently released from prison here, I believe.  At the
beginning of each program, a slide illustrates the books that the narrator
says viewers need in order to follow the discussion -- it includes the King
James Version of the Bible, various concordances, dictionaries, etc.  They
take a very interesting approach to interpreting the Bible -- they take the
words found in a particular verse or verses, and they start substituting
synonyms, and they take the chain  of synonym substitutions far enough to
be able to claim things like "Thus the prophet Ezekiel explains that alien
visitors came from outer space and gave Our Leader a revelation of the
Truth which all must believe or go to hell unless they send a check for at
least $25 immediately."  I'm exaggerating a bit, of course, but it's almost
that bad.

Once a reader starts substituting her words for the author's, there's no
end to where she can go with it.  At some point -- and that point is, I'm
sure, highly debatable -- she has left the text behind and substituted her
own rewritten version of it, in order to make the book say what she wants
it to say.

Cordially,
Doug