Olsen: The Fantastic in GR

[jbor at bigpond.com]

A patchy essay but worth reading (pdf available):

'Deconstructing the Enemy of Color: The Fantastic in _Gravity's 
Rainbow_'
by Lance Olsen. _Studies in the Novel_ 18.1, Spring 1986, pp. 74-86.	
Abstract: Presents a critical analysis of _GR_: discourse of fantasy as 
a medium for postmodern consciousness in the novel; notion of character 
and identity; comic surrealism in Pynchon's novel; disruption of the 
mimetic belief in the stability of time and space; instability in the 
way language functions in the novel; response of readers to the novel.

Begins:
"_Gravity's Rainbow_--what one reviewer frustrated by its length, 
structure, and seeming lack off control tagged "a magnificent 
necropolis that will take its place amidst the detritus of our 
culture"-- was probably the most unread best seller in America during 
1973, perhaps ever. It teetered at the bottom of the NYTBR list for two 
weeks late in April and another two early in May before it toppled off 
altogether to make way for Susann's _Once is Not Enough_, Forsyth's 
_The Odessa File_ and, of course, Bach's _Jonathan Livingston Seagull_, 
the last of which was soaring toward its sixtieth week as Pynchon's 
text tumbled. [...]"

best