VLVL2 (1) warm-up: Dedication

[Tim Strzechowski]

So many writers go through a development in their tone over the course of a career, due to personal triumphs and defeats.  Dickens, whose earliest works were little more than rollicking romps and character sketches (The Pickwick Papers, for example), underwent personal tragedy and stress as well as incredible artistic triumph over the years, becoming along the way the "voice" of Victorian London social commentary with each successive novel.  Our Mutual Friend, his final full-length novel in his lifetime and a brilliant piece of writing, is hardly the slapsticky romp of Pickwick.  And Twain is another example of a writer whose works changed over the years -- and not always for the better (but certainly for the "bitter") -- due to personal experiences and hardships.

Pynchon's is not an art wherein the biographical can really help us notice the changes within it.  Since little is known of his personal life, the closest we get in his novels to "personal statements" is the dedications.  In this respect, I think you may be right in saying that the progression of the dedications (from none at all, to "friend," to "parents," to "wife and child") definitely shows a gradual turning inward, a tightening of the family/social circle, dare I say an increased intimacy with loved ones, perhaps as old age approaches.


Maybe his next novel will be dedicated to his physician.

Tim

  Though I cannot prove it -it's only an idea- I'm having the impression 'Vineland' and 'Mason & Dixon' are written by a happy man: these two books are much warmer in tone.

  My 2 cents.

  Michel.

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