Reading from the margins

[Paul Nightingale]

I know Malignd has already reviewed this book for us, but here's my
first take on the two chapters I've looked at (as opposed to reading
carefully) so far. Robert Holton's chapter on the early stories
mentions, in passing, 1984 as part of a discussion of conformity in
1950s America and P's focus on marginalised, non-conformist groups. The
chapter's a good reading of P's reading of contemporary society, which
is what P himself is doing in the Foreword. One point. Holton refers to
a lot of contemporary 'non-fiction' texts (you know, the one's that
aren't 'made up') but he doesn't cite Becker's Outsiders. Does anyone
else, anywhere?

Then, Gary Thompson's chapter ("Pynchonian Pastiche") considers P's
writing of history. He focuses on M&D and GR, V as well, but does write:
"If we focus on the problem of how we know the past, COL49 and VL are
involved as well. Foregrounding representation is necessary to doing
counter-history without its being co-opted into the next official
history." Again, one might be inclined to think this is pertinent to our
discussion of the Foreword.