Gothicism in Postmodern Anglo-American Narratives and Media

[Otto]

Gothicism in Postmodern Anglo-American Narratives and Media
Hans Ulrich Mohr (Dresden)

*Cover of the American writer Thomas Pynchon's novel /Gravity's Rainbow./*
Pynchon has created the hitherto most complex representations of 
postmodern society. The title of this book refers to the two outstanding 
discoveries of the famous mathematician and natural scientist Isaac 
Newton, vz. the law of gravitation and the prismatic effect. Both 
discoveries provided extremely important preconditions for the 
development of the industrial society, the 'project of modernity'. 
Pynchon's novel exemplifies the fundamental contradictions of industrial 
society by telling the history of a man who is modelled upon Wernher von 
Braun and who experiences the culmination of industrial society in the 
paradox of high-tech (V 2- rocket, space technology) on the one hand and 
concentration camps on the other. The (adequate) German translation of 
the book (publ. by Rowohlt Publ.) bears the florid title /Die Enden der 
Parabel/ ('the ends of the parable/ parabola') because the translator 
(as he admitted to me (H.U.M.) found Pynchon's title somewhat meaningless.
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