AtD--How Does it Fit/Great Global Novels

[Ya Sam]

>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?
>

Well said. Whether the fourth novel of the quartet has been in works for 
some time, had been abandoned or will ever be written is still the matter of 
speculation. In the documentary they said that Pynchon had a very hard time 
writing GR, writer's block and all, and we can only guess at what cost the 
behemoth of AtD was born.

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