A Historical Novel of a New Sort

[Terrance]

Sounds like what the above is saying is that some of Pynchon's readers
and/or critics are are exceedingly dense (hope there are examples given)
failing right off the bat to recognize that Pynchon is not a Herman Wouk
but a writer who actually CAN thwart readers' automatic explanations of
things, interrogate their unrecognized beliefs concerning good and evil,
etc,,etc. In other words can do things that make one a good writer. Is
there much more to it than this? If so, are the mere existences of poor
readers and critics a very sturdy even partical base upon which to build
a scholarly article? People who have read Inger Dalsgaard's article will
know the answer. I'm just giving my untutored reaction to the brief
excerpt.

Same here ... but I would add that the critic seems to argue that the "dense" 
misread Pynchon and thus accuse the author of Gravity's Rainbow, famous for his 
democratic and humane ideas, of latent anti-Semitism.  That's one reason why 
the examples (citations) are to be hoped for. In other words, those of us "dense" enough 
argue that it is not Pynchon's duty, nor even his business, to include historical
events that even the most dense will admit are entirely abhorrent, but that what makes
Pynchon a great novelist is that novels like Gravity's Rainbow and Mason & Dixon are driven by 
some of the crucial tensions, ambivalances, and contradictions that tore America and Europe apart
twice and threaten to tear the worls apart still.