TPPM Watts: (1) Title

[Paul Nightingale]

A journey into the mind of Watts (aka another heart of darkness,
perhaps).

Does the title promise an excursion from which the reader-as-tourist
might expect to return?

For the Pynchon reader one obvious reference is to Conrad's novel. I
think we might also cite the anthropological text exemplified by the
work of, eg, Malinowski and Mead. The Watts text is reminiscent (with
important differences) of fieldwork that offers a report to/for those
who haven't themselves made the journey.

Furthermore, I would offer, as another important (con)text, the
ethnography: in the early-60s Becker's Outsiders (1963) is a good
example (and certainly relevant to any discussion of the early stories,
as well as the Watts essay) of an approach that does advocate journeying
into the mind of its subject.

Hence the question posed above: what kind of relationship between reader
and referent has been constructed?

Moving on, what is the relationship between the Watts essay and CoL49?
Happily, it now seems official on Pynchon-l that all texts are
fictional. Nonetheless, different texts adopt different narrative
strategies. Is Oedipa Maas a tourist? How do the Watts essay and CoL49
approach the question of reading differently?