V. Was for Varo Too

[Clement Levy]

Hi all, lemme give you a few infos on Granada International Pynchon 
Week.
The International Pynchon Conference held in Granada two weeks ago was 
a great opportunity for European Pynchonites to meet each other and 
join the Americans who passed over the Ocean to the old Andalusian 
city.
I attended the conference as an auditor, not being ready in time to 
send a proposal or even to get something audible at the right moment.
The organization was wonderful, Francisco Collado from the University 
of Zaragoza being a very attentive chairman during the four days of the 
conference, and Celia Wallhead offering to all a cheerful welcome in 
her university, at the Centro de Lenguas Modernas. John Krafft (Pynchon 
Notes, Miami University), through his wistful comments and kind notes, 
dispensed to all of us his deep knowledge of Pynchon's works.
I should add that Granada is one of these cities you cannot leave 
without feeling sorry. So much to see, good wines and tapas, flamenco 
dancers on the Sacromonte hill, and the palaces of the ancient Moor 
rulers on the Alhambra citadel. Celia Wallhead helped us discover the 
city, giving good advice, heartily interpreting some of the facts we 
were to witness, Granada living at that time according to the rhythm of 
the Corpus Christi fair, ceremonies and processions.
So after coming back home I dried my tears and re-read my notes. Not 
being an expert (not yet!) in Pynchon studies, I wouldn't comment 
precisely enough on every one of the 22 papers read (or sometimes acted 
in the most vivid way), but let me try to present what was for me the 
most inspiring. Other auditors shall develop and amend the missing or 
badly understood parts in my summary.
A few of the lecturers studied Pynchon's works under other authors 
perspective: Wittgenstein by Sascha Poehlmann, or Dan Brown (!) by 
Rodney Taveira.
Art was the common theme of a few papers: songs in the short stories by 
Damian Hey, engineering as an art by Birger Vanwesenbeeck, V-Effect by 
Giuseppe Episcopo, and of course the paintings of Remedios Varo, in 
William Day's talks.
Some scholars chose to study other significant themes, as childhood by 
Zofia Kolbuszewska, entropy by William Day, Francisco Collado, and 
Julián Jiménez Hefferman.
Close studies of characters or memorable passages were also offered by 
Terry Reilly (Carroll Eventyr and Charles Richet, a French 
psychologist), Mark Quinn (the Kenosha Kid and Once Upon A Time in the 
West, by Sergio Leone, as one of the sources), and Celia Wallhead on 
Oedipa Maas (or how to teach Lot 49). Tom Schaub too offered a very 
interesting study on the deaf-mutes' dance scene in The Crying of Lot 
49.
Luc Herman produced a wonderful insight of the way Pynchon modified his 
first version of V., following (?) or choosing not to follow the advice 
of his editor. A-and Steven Weisenburger went further in his study of 
Pynchon's spaces in term of a topology of powers and gave us a great 
analysis of the state of emergency in which so many characters are 
portrayed (inmates, refugees, fugitives), and that characterizes 
democracy (as a body politics, in Foucault's terms). This paper fit 
very well with Robert Holton's, who delivered a masterly study of 
"lumpen" in Pynchon's novels. The social and political question was 
thus one of the big issues of this great conference.
I am leaving much aside, but I would be glad if this short summary 
could help you gather some more information on Pynchon Week 2006.
Best regards.
Clément Lévy