Snappycrossdresser

[Paul Mackin]

On Fri, 2004-10-15 at 15:56, Otto wrote:
> > 
> > Would anyone care to state 
> 
> yes
> 
> >in a few concise preferably grammatical
> > sentences 
> 
> no
> 
> >what makes Pynchon po-mo?
> > 
> > Just wondered.
> > 
> 
> the reversal of cause and effect
Roger sez he's not quite ready to give up on cause and effect. 

There's also the rocket striking before it's heard.

These are possibly nods to Derrida's cause and effect deconstruction.
But let's face it. The reversal of cause and effect is nothing in
itself. If it has any importance at all, it would be some implication
about the use of language to produce fixed truth. 



> 
> binary oppositions, unity of opposites, entropy, chaos, indeterminacy
> 
There's a big OVERdeterminancy. With the location of Slothrup's  sex
conquests determining where the V-2s come down. Or is that just
prediction?

> Pilgrim's progress and pentecost postmodern (no salvation, no revelation)

But there were angels appearing to the dying. Angels are beings that
reveal things.

> 
> re-writing of official history

Yes, but should the rewritings always be paranoias? This would give
revisionist history a bad name.

That World War II was just a shuffling of markets, the killing of so
many people merely a distraction, a sideshow for innocents, providing
vivid material for schoolbooks.


> self-reflexive writing
This may be the most po-mo thing he has going for him, even though
self-reflexivity isn't anything that just appeared in po-mo times.

I'm not saying you're wrong, Otto, but I think you need more
clarification.