VLVL2 Chapter 3

[Harold Lewis]

Pynchon write on page 26:
"geniuses with wood who could build you anything from a bowling alley to a Carpenter Gothic outhouse.

Is Carpenter Gothic a reference to William Gaddis' 1985 novel Carpenter Gothic?

from William Gaddis: Life & Work by Peter Dempsey:
"Carpenter's gothic mimics the grand Victorian style, but is built from wood rather than from the expensive wrought iron and stone called for in the original.  It is impressive from a distance, but when viewed close up, it is what the novel calls "a patchwork of conceits, borrowings, deceptions." This is a dark novel that offers us "a vision of disorder which (is) beyound any....man to put right". Once again Gaddis is concerned with human corruption and creativity gone to waste but what compels the reader, if anything does in this immensely enervasting novel, is the intricate plotting and its escoriating satire on religious dogmatism in general and absolutist thing in particular."

hal

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