ATD SPOILER p. 93, 95

[pynchonoid]

Pynchon gets to have his cake and eat it too.  By
writing about a remote historical period, he's removed
himself a considerable authorial distance, but he also
gets the benefit of resonance with current events by
choosing which facts to highlight from the period, by
choosing the diction with which to present them, all
building on the reverberations inherent in the subject
matter. Strict constructionists may point to the text
and say, There's no mention of September 11, 2001, or
President Bush, or etc. specifically on the page, such
an interpretation can't be supported by the text &
etc. - and that's a reasonable point to make, although
one can always hope that it's a point presented with
tact if not grace.  The result is, so far in ATD, the
frequent evocation of US post-September 11 in terms
that will be difficult to nail down, but which are, at
the same time, obvious to most readers if not all. 
Nothing new in Pynchon, of course, this sort of
displacement makes his texts notoriously slippery, as
we've seen in past group readings and discussions in
this forum.





 
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