Hume: Postmortem politics in Pynchon &c

[jbor at bigpond.com]

Should have noted that Hume also discusses _Ancient Evenings_ (1983) by 
Mailer, _The Western Lands_ (1987) by Burroughs, and Acker's story 'The 
World', which is appended to _Blood and Guts in High School_ (1984). 
(pdf)

best

On 01/04/2005, at 7:50 AM, jbor at bigpond.com wrote:

> Contains a brief and cogent discussion of Pynchon's use of the Tibetan
> Book of the Dead, Yurok myths &c in _Vineland_; not surprisingly,
> there's no mention of Dante:
>
> 'Books of the dead: Postmortem politics in novels by Mailer, Burroughs,
> Acker, and Pynchon' by Kathryn Hume.
> _Modern Philology_ 97.3, 2000, pp. 417-444.
>
> Abstract: Focuses on reasons why contemporary writers resurrect ancient
> ritual instructions in the West as books of the dead. View of Kathy
> Acker of most Americans as spiritually dead; instructions for the dead
> as metaphorically apt as cultural criticism; non-separation of
> postmortem existence from life in Western thought by borrowed
> eschatologies; foreign models for afterlife.
>
> best
>