Rocketmen and Wastelands

[Monte Davis]

> > an award-winning essay on Pynchon's first 3 novels by Marshall
> > Shord. Anybody read it yet? Thoughts?
> 
> Just saw it the other day myself, and -- while I didn't think the time
> wasted --
> didn't think highly of it. Serviceable but flat-footed prose: "Oedipa
> takes advantage of the system in order to gain a sense of personal meaning
> in a
> dehumanized society. It is imperfect really, but it demonstrates an
> ingenuity and a sense
> of bravery to exist within a system but not submit to it that is not found
> in any of
> Pynchon's other characters."
> 
> He makes all the dutiful connections to Norman O. Brown, Marcuse, McLuhan,
> mechanization/de-animation, systems taking over, etc. But he doesn't seem
> to be having any fun, or to be alive to how much fun TRP is having.
> 
> It's the Battle of The Big Themes, too quick to look through -- past --
> what's on the page and in the reader's experience of it to get to the
> cultural commentary. Cf.Nabokov's remark in the interview: " I believe in
> stressing the specific detail; the general ideas can take care of
> themselves."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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