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

[bekah]

At 7:51 AM -0600 11/3/06, David Morris wrote:
>Sure, they were fairly well developed, especially Mason with his
>grief.  But they were surrounded by an almost entirely cartoon world,
>which makes their "roundness" of limited use.
>
>David Morris
>
>On 11/2/06, David Casseres <david.casseres at gmail.com> wrote:
>>To me, Mason and Dixon are fully-rounded characters.  I have a 
>>sense of what they looked like, what their voices sounded like.

***

I thought that Mason and Dixon were more rounded than other Pynchon 
characters.  I thought that the Vineland characters were the most 
flat.  Rounded characters have twists and quirks,  good and bad 
sides,  a certain unpredictability.  Flat characters more closely 
conform to an image in society - a hippie,  a social debutante, a "


A writer can describe a hippie at length and breadth with each and 
every detail in place but still have a flat character because the 
character fits a stereotype - he's not an individual.  The outline is 
provided by society.  There are no surprises in his actions.   An 
excruciatingly well articulated  paper-doll is still a paper doll and 
has no real individuality,  he is still,  generally,   a "type." 
The characters of Dickens are like this,  terrific paper dolls 
pointing to the issues of import in Victorian England.  To say that 
Pynchon's characters are flattish is certainly no slight and I 
*certainly*  didn't mean it as one.    Actually,  to me,  the fact 
that the characters are somewhat flat means that the themes or 
something else may be more important.

Bekah




Bekah