ATD: NO SPOILERS NO PAGE # Re: Rocketmen and Wastelands

[David Morris]

Well, remember that I said the chaos was the flip side of the
encyclopedic nature of his writing.  GR has been argued to have a very
definite structure corresponding to a nine moth's birth cycle, though
I can't find the reference, and I wouldn't level the chaotic charge to
it because it never seems to diverge without reason or connection.
MD, though, does seem to have a number of episodes that are fun in and
of themselves, but makes one wonder why they're included.  I liked MD,
but it isn't GR after all.. ;)

On 11/1/06, Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> So I can partly agree with you on the cartoonish charges, but I absolutely
> have to disagree with your critique of the chaotic and encyclopedic nature
> of Pynchon's novels: Heck, that chaos is one of the most important aspects
> of novels like GR and M&D: If you like your fiction to be carefully plotted
> and exquisitely structured like for instance "The Great Gatsby", then I can
> certainly see why you would dislike the chaotic aspect of Pynchon's longer
> novels. But IMO GR and M&D aren't attempts to order the world in a piece of
> fiction. T. S. Eliot described Joyce's mythical method as "a way of
> controlling, of ordering, of giving a shape and a significance to the
> immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history".
> Pynchon's long novels are not really attempts to control, order and give
> shape to this immense panorama. They're attempts to REFLECT this panorama,
> with all its confusion, all its dread and all its information overload. The
> encyclopedic nature of his novels simply provide a realistic reflection of
> the barrage of information we're met with daily. The lack of an overt,
> crystalline structure isn't the same as giving in to the futility of
> contemporary history, however. Value and significance can easily be found in
> the middle of all the chaos of Pynchon's novels, but in the form of small,
> local kindnesses and ad hoc adventures - not through some authorial ordering
> of all this information into a large, clear structure, or neat little
> parcels.
>
>
> >From: "David Morris" <fqmorris at gmail.com>
> >Another weakness that is the flip side of his "encyclopedic" quality
> >is the chaos that results from throwing in everything, including the
> >kitchen sink.  That is what I fear AtD will do, both from Pychon's own
> >blurb and from the PW review.