Against the Day/Songs

[Joe Allonby]

I think that this post was written by Thomas Pynchon.

On 7/20/06, Chris Broderick <elsuperfantastico at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Hello.  I'm one of those who just joined the list
> thanks to Slate, though I knew of it, thanks to the
> someone passing out free copies of Lineland at Burning
> Man, which I finished reading before I washed off the
> crust of Black Rock City.
>
> Anyway, I just wanted to comment on the various bits
> of speculation about the title Against the Day.  It
> seems that this is all in a piece with a significant
> (to my mind at least) thematic element in GR, that of
> preterition.  If so, the part in Pynchon's blurb (I
> cling to the belief that it was him!) that begged off
> any comparison of the Day in the title to the present
> is at least a little disingenuous, considering how
> many American foax are of the belief that, to
> paraphrase Robert Anton Wilson, the eschaton is
> immanent (as evidenced by the horrors in the Mideast,
> Gay Marriage, parents unwilling to whip their kids,
> etc.)
>
> But I digress (I'm on the Pynchon list, so digressions
> are welcome, right?)  My point is that an element that
> was prevalent in GR of those who struggle against the
> idea of apocalypse seems to be front & center in this
> latest novel, at least as far as these mysterious
> missives are concerned.  That warms my heart
> considerably, not that I would shun any work by Mr.
> Pynchon at this point regardless of its level of
> apocalypse shunning.
>
> Another element that makes me particularly hungry for
> this piece is the time period.  To my mind, one of the
> stronger elements of GR (and one of the lesser
> elements of the subsequent 2 novels) was Mr. Pynchon's
> facility with song lyrics that fit the period.  The
> man obviously knows his Cole Porter and Rodgers &
> Hammerstein, and knows how to tweak them
> appropriately.  It has long been a fantasy of mine to
> put many of the lyrics of GR to music, simply because
> it would be so easy (which is less true of Vineland
> and M&D, since he seems to have less facility with
> rock both punk and hippie and early American music,
> respectively.  So a novel by TP set in the dawn of the
> 20th-Century sets this musician's heart aflutter.
>
> Anyway, I blather on too long.
>
> Thanks,
> Chris
>
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