maps in V. and Vineland?

[Glenn Scheper]

How about graph metaphors? Just in case you haven't seen one yet--

This single trace of a Poissonian Distribution may not look like
a detumescing phallus...
http://www.relm.org/tutorial_materials/PSHA_Primer/Image10.gif

...but for best recognition, with right breadth, see this PDF file,
in which its Figure 2 has an overlaid family of Poissonian curves:
http://www.pa.msu.edu/~bauer/pdf/Pratt98.pdf 

> Maybe the map metaphors are Pynchonian riffs on that old Eric Bell saw, "the map is not the territory"?

>> >Pynchon's interest in the cartographic imagination goes way beyond ...
>> >Western conventions, and there's Vheissu in _V._ and the Native 
>> >American conception of the layout of the land in _Vineland_, and 
>> >various maps in _Lot 49_ also (one in 'TSI' too, if I remember 
>> >correctly), but _M&D_ is the novel where cartography per se is most 
>> >prominent (of course).
>> 
>> Pynchon's interest in cartography is related to his interest in 
>> "mapping" in all its forms.  The most prominent of these mappings in 
>> his work would be Slothop's map, and specifically the question of its 
>> significance.  Phenomena are sifted through a recording system, 
>> producing a map, something readable, but once-removed from its source.  
>> In Gravity's Rainbow such recordings are called "pornographies" and 
>> "fetishes."
>> 
>> Ghetta
>> 

Yours truly,
Glenn Scheper
http://home.earthlink.net/~glenn_scheper/
glenn_scheper + at + earthlink.net
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