AtD--How Does it Fit/Great Global Novels

[Tore Rye Andersen]

>Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:04:12 -0400
>From: rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
>Subject: AtD--How Does it Fit
>
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>HI all--
>
>just speculating here but AtD would seem (based on pynchon's own
>description) to be the the third installment along with V., and GR of a 
>huge
>mediation on modern culture, imperialism, technology, war, and
>apocalypse--from a global perspective.
>
>I would argue that Lot49, Vineland, and M&D hang together as its main
>concerns are with America--it's late potential for bad shit in the 1st; 
>it's
>specific betrayals in the 2nd; and its promising beginnings, if you will.
>
>I like Doug's idea that Pynchon may have been writing this for a long time.
>AtD could represent the fullfillment of Pynchon's dream of finishing the
>books he had in his head back in the early 1960s. but as three large 
>novels,
>not four as he stated at the time.
>
>of course, it could be something completely different
>
>rich
>

I think MD belongs together with V., GR, and AtD: It does deal with America, 
true, but a third of the novel deals with the rest of the world and with the 
imperialistic impulse in general. I think of V., GR, MD, and - based on the 
description - AtD as Pynchon's attempts at writing The Great Global Novel. 
Other writers aim for the Great American Novel, but I really see these long 
novels by Pynchon - GR in particular - as Great Global Novels.

It can also be argued that V. should be left out of this equation. It was 
Pynchon's first novel, and probably written before he conceived of his 
ambitious, four-novel-project. V. deals directly with both history and 
contemporary stuff, and even though the concerns in the historical chapters 
in many ways resemble the concerns in e.g. GR, the double vision of V. seems 
to set it apart from GR, MD, and AtD (and from the 'American novels' Lot 49 
and Vineland).

So we're left with the triptycon of MD, AtD, and GR: Historical novels which 
all depict what the Germans call a 'Sattelzeit': a period of historical 
transition, where the world moves from one world order to another, one 
paradigm to another. MD maps (as it were) the transition from magical times 
to Enlightenment, AtD will describe the transition from Newtonian mechanics 
and determinism to an Einsteinian uncertainty ("As an age of certainty comes 
crashing down around their ears..."), GR describes the movement from the age 
of modernism into our poor old postmodern information age. The fourth 
projected novel would, I suspect, have dealt with the future: "The Japanese 
Insurance Adjustor" would have fit nicely into this scheme, ne?
Together, these historical novels constitute a Great Global Novel which 
tries to answer this basic triptycon of questions: Who are we, where do we 
come from, and where are we headed?

This is all just speculation, of course, but what else do we have to while 
the time away until November 21st?

Tore