van Delden: Modernism, New Criticism and V.

[jbor at bigpond.com]

An extremely good essay on _V._, well worth reading. Pdf available.

'Modernism, the New Criticism and Thomas Pynchon's _V._'
by Maarten Van Delden. _Novel: A Forum on Fiction_ 23.2 , 1990, pp. 
117-136.

Abstract:	Presents a critique of Thomas Pynchon's book _V._ Problem of 
how and where to find a principle of order in the modern world; book's 
characters; reconstruction of a context for Pynchon's conception of 
order and myth in the book.

Begins:
As an example of a postmodernist text that resonates with echoes of the 
modernist writers of the first half of this century, Thomas Pynchon's 
_V._ offers an excellent site for an analysis of the shift from 
modernism to postmodernism. It is a shift that manifests itself in an 
altered view of the nature of art, but also in the emergence of 
different conceptions of the self and of history. [...]

best