Lord: Lot 49 and Waterland

[jbor at bigpond.com]

Essay. Pdf available.

'Mystery and History, Discovery and Recovery in Thomas Pynchon's _The 
Crying of Lot 49_ and Graham Swift's _Waterland_'
by Geoffrey Lord. _Neophilologus_ 81.1, Dordrecht, Jan 1997, pp. 
145-163.

Abstract:
Despite the privileging of difference by postmodern theories, there is 
a tendency to regard postmodernism as a universal cultural phenomenon. 
The map of postmodernism may, however, need boundary revision since, as 
I argue, postmodern novels like _The Crying of Lot 49_, by Thomas 
Pynchon (American), and _Waterland_, by Graham Swift (English), 
demonstrate the persistence of national historical/cultural 
differences. _Lot 49_ and _Waterland_ exemplify features that critics 
see as characteristically postmodern, such as literary 
self-consciousness, the use of the detective/mystery plot, and a 
resistance to closure. Yet they also conform to, as well as confirm, 
traditional distinctions, including those of British and American 
detective fiction, American romance and English realism. Moreover, _Lot 
49_ and _Waterland_ sustain customary assumptions about divergent 
national perspectives, as this essay demonstrates through an 
exploration of the contrast between the overall orientation of the 
novels captured in oppositions of mystery and history, and of discovery 
and recovery.

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