New Pynchon Novel Title to be Revealed Within the Next Week

[Dave Monroe]

I once told somebody that the only literary character
I'd ever really "identified" with was Ignatius Reilly
(Confederacy of Dunces, with Oedipa Maas coming in a
close second, and then it's Beckett from tehre on out,
so ...).  She was (justly) horrified.  Coincidentally
(?), I saw her picture in the paper today (my God,
people my age are OLD).  But I've taken to telling
people that Mason & Dixon, despite 800+ pages of faux
century prose et al., might well be Pynchon's most
"accessible" book, precisely because people might
actually "identify," or, at any rate, sympathize, with
the characters.  Was never a concern of mine, but ...

But I'd also note that Pynchon's Mason and Dixon are,
ultimately, inevitably, even indisputably (fully
expecting nonetheless, of course, a dispute) late
twentieth century characters, just as any characters
in any late twentieth century fiction are, whether
they be   from a novel or a movie or a comic book or a
teevee show or a play or a musical or a cartoon or an
advertisement or ... historical, sci fi, horror,
romance, Western, contemporary, what have you ....

We, on the other hand, have ultimately, inevitably,
even indisputably (fully expecting ...) gone from
being twentieth to twenty-first century characters ...

--- Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net> wrote:

> I know I can "identify" with the characters in GR
> better than with those in M&D....

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